Cosmopolitan Minds

Literature, Emotion, and the Transnational Imagination

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American, Books & Reading
Cover of the book Cosmopolitan Minds by Alexa Weik von Mossner, University of Texas Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Alexa Weik von Mossner ISBN: 9780292757653
Publisher: University of Texas Press Publication: April 21, 2014
Imprint: University of Texas Press Language: English
Author: Alexa Weik von Mossner
ISBN: 9780292757653
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication: April 21, 2014
Imprint: University of Texas Press
Language: English
During World War II and the early Cold War period, factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, or class made a number of American writers feel marginalized in U.S. society. Cosmopolitan Minds focuses on a core of transnational writers—Kay Boyle, Pearl S. Buck, William Gardner Smith, Richard Wright, and Paul Bowles—who found themselves prompted to seek experiences outside of their home country, experiences that profoundly changed their self-understanding and creative imagination as they encountered alternative points of views and cultural practices in Europe, Asia, and Africa.Alexa Weik von Mossner offers a new perspective on the affective underpinnings of critical and reflexive cosmopolitanism by drawing on theories of emotion and literary imagination from cognitive psychology, philosophy, and cognitive literary studies. She analyzes how physical dislocation, and the sometimes violent shifts in understanding that result from our affective encounters with others, led Boyle, Buck, Smith, Wright, and Bowles to develop new, cosmopolitan solidarities across national, ethnic, and religious boundaries. She also shows how, in their literary texts, these writers employed strategic empathy to provoke strong emotions such as love, sympathy, compassion, fear, anger, guilt, shame, and disgust in their readers in order to challenge their parochial worldviews and practices. Reading these texts as emotionally powerful indictments of institutionalized racism and national violence inside and outside of the United States, Weik von Mossner demonstrates that our emotional engagements with others—real and imagined—are crucially important for the development of transnational and cosmopolitan imaginations.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
During World War II and the early Cold War period, factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, or class made a number of American writers feel marginalized in U.S. society. Cosmopolitan Minds focuses on a core of transnational writers—Kay Boyle, Pearl S. Buck, William Gardner Smith, Richard Wright, and Paul Bowles—who found themselves prompted to seek experiences outside of their home country, experiences that profoundly changed their self-understanding and creative imagination as they encountered alternative points of views and cultural practices in Europe, Asia, and Africa.Alexa Weik von Mossner offers a new perspective on the affective underpinnings of critical and reflexive cosmopolitanism by drawing on theories of emotion and literary imagination from cognitive psychology, philosophy, and cognitive literary studies. She analyzes how physical dislocation, and the sometimes violent shifts in understanding that result from our affective encounters with others, led Boyle, Buck, Smith, Wright, and Bowles to develop new, cosmopolitan solidarities across national, ethnic, and religious boundaries. She also shows how, in their literary texts, these writers employed strategic empathy to provoke strong emotions such as love, sympathy, compassion, fear, anger, guilt, shame, and disgust in their readers in order to challenge their parochial worldviews and practices. Reading these texts as emotionally powerful indictments of institutionalized racism and national violence inside and outside of the United States, Weik von Mossner demonstrates that our emotional engagements with others—real and imagined—are crucially important for the development of transnational and cosmopolitan imaginations.

More books from University of Texas Press

Cover of the book Gabriel García Moreno and Conservative State Formation in the Andes by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book Forays into Swedish Poetry by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book The Chora of Metaponto 6 by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book Texas and Northeastern Mexico, 1630-1690 by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book All Religions Are Good in Tzintzuntzan by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book Captain John R. Hughes by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book Sexuality and Being in the Poststructuralist Universe of Clarice Lispector by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book Public Spending and Democracy in Classical Athens by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book Life in Oil by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book Naked Truth by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book Facundo and the Construction of Argentine Culture by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book Queer Brown Voices by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book The Power of Huacas by Alexa Weik von Mossner
Cover of the book The Fictional Christopher Nolan by Alexa Weik von Mossner
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy