Publisher Description

Concentrating on the work of four major modernist authors Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis and Samuel Beckett this book examines the close links between modernist literature and the philosophy of mind. By historicising the qualia debate and situating it within its cultural and literary contexts, it stages interventions into a range of academic debates: over the status of 'sensations' and 'sense data' within modernist fiction, over the scope and possibility of 'neuroaesthetic' approaches to literary criticism, and over the relationship between literature, philosophy and technology in the modernist moment.

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A radical intervention into critical debates over the status of sensation within modernist literatureConcentrating on the work of four major modernist authors - Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis and Samuel Beckett - this book examines the close links between modernist literature and the philosophy of mind. By historicising the qualia debate and situating it within its cultural and literary contexts, it stages interventions into a range of academic debates: over the status of 'sensations' and 'sense data' within modernist fiction, over the scope and possibility of 'neuroaesthetic' approaches to literary criticism, and over the relationship between literature, philosophy and technology in the modernist moment. Jon Day is Lecturer in English at King's College, London.

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A radical intervention into critical debates over the status of sensation within modernist literatureConcentrating on the work of four major modernist authors - Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis and Samuel Beckett - this book examines the close links between modernist literature and the philosophy of mind. By historicising the qualia debate and situating it within its cultural and literary contexts, it stages interventions into a range of academic debates: over the status of 'sensations' and 'sense data' within modernist fiction, over the scope and possibility of 'neuroaesthetic' approaches to literary criticism, and over the relationship between literature, philosophy and technology in the modernist moment.Jon Day is Lecturer in English at King's College, London.

Author Biography

Jon Day, Lecturer in English Literature, Kings College London.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction: Modernist Fiction and the Problem of Qualia; 1. Cognitive Realism, Qualia and the Inward Turn; 2. What Virginia Didn't Know: Knowledge, Impressionism and the Eye; 3. What is it like to Be Leopold Bloom?; 4. Neuromodernism and the Explanatory Gap; 5. Samuel Beckett and Modernism's Narratives of Reduction; 6. Hollow Men and Chinese Rooms: Wyndham Lewis and the Will-to-Automatism; Conclusion: Modernism, Qualia, and the Narratives of Behaviourism; Bibliography; Index.

Review Quote

Day's account of early twentieth century philosophical debates around qualia provides a refreshingly original approach to understanding the representation of minds, bodies, and their relation to the world in modernist writing. A valuable work of historicist criticism, the book demonstrates the limitations of current neuroaesthetic, cognitive/affective and purely phenomenological accounts of the modernist mind.

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A radical intervention into critical debates over the status of sensation within modernist literature

Description for Reader

A radical intervention into critical debates over the status of sensation within modernist literature Offers novel and insightful readings of key modernist authors within their philosophical contexts Critiques a range of 'neuroaesthetic' approaches to literary criticism Proposes new ways of thinking about the relationship between philosophy, literature and technology within modernist studies. Concentrating on the work of four major modernist authors - Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis and Samuel Beckett - this book examines the close links between modernist literature and the philosophy of mind. By historicising the qualia debate and situating it within its cultural and literary contexts, it stages interventions into a range of academic debates: over the status of 'sensations' and 'sense data' within modernist fiction, over the scope and possibility of 'neuroaesthetic' approaches to literary criticism, and over the relationship between literature, philosophy and technology in the modernist moment.

Feature

Offers novel and insightful readings of key modernist authors within their philosophical contexts Critiques a range of 'neuroaesthetic' approaches to literary criticism Proposes new ways of thinking about the relationship between philosophy, literature and technology within modernist studies.

Description for Sales People

Offers novel and insightful readings of key modernist authors within their philosophical contexts Critiques a range of 'neuroaesthetic' approaches to literary criticism Proposes new ways of thinking about the relationship between philosophy, literature and technology within modernist studies.

Description for Teachers/Educators

Modernism, Modernist Literature, The Modernist Novel, Literature and Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Literature and Technology

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