How Literature Plays with the Brain

"How Literature Plays with the Brain: The Neuroscience of Reading and Art is a highly informative and carefully argued book. We recommend a close reading of it."—Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations

"Armstrong's book is a beautiful example of how humanities scholars can accomplish a conversation across the gap between the 'two cultures' without giving up their disciplinary identity, bringing the larger picture to bear on the more particular research of the cognitive sciences."—Karin Kukkonen, Cambridge Quarterly

"Armstrong finds his inspiration in recent neuroscience . . . his overview of mirror neuron theory and the controversies that surround it, for example, outdoes in accuracy and judiciousness any other account I have seen among neuroaesthetics and cognitive literary studies."—Modern Fiction Studies

"At present, when so many universities would gleefully discard the study of the arts in the service of a utilitarian turn in higher education, the evidence that Armstrong provides for their vital cognitive function and the coherence with which he presents that evidence is indeed both welcome and timely."—Philosophy and Literature

"Armstrong explores the ways that neuroscience and literary theory can be mutually illuminating about the processes of reading and about the aesthetics of literary response. He makes explicit some of the most vital, yet heretofore overlooked, connections between the aims of literary criticism and cognitive neuroscience. There are wonderful insights in How Literature Plays with the Brain, and it is clearly the work of a strong critic who is well educated on both sides of the science-humanities divide."—G. Gabrielle Starr, New York University