Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 13 Number 2, August 2012
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Lisa Zunshine, editor. Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2010. Paperback. 400 pgs. ISBN: 9780801894886. $35.00US
Reviewed by
St. Francis College (New York)
Not that there has to be a direction, but (in the muddied ripples of postmodernist thinking) where are studies in the humanities headed? If science is (among other things) a method, what are the humanities? Is it merely a byproduct, as some (Steven Pinker), have infamously claimed? In the wake of post-structuralism, is there any wonder that the humanities (for those outside such disciplines or for those outside of academe) appear, dare one say, useless? The tide has turned and the water is clearing. In fact, the debacle resulting from much nonsensical post-structuralist and post-modern writing has been over for some time. One very promising area of thought is evolutionary studies, especially in terms of the adaptive function of the arts. Another closely related area is cognitive studies, and Lisa Zunshine’s Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies best exemplifies this extraordinarily rich mine of ore. For anyone in search of new patterns of thinking about the arts, or a history and encapsulation of cognitive studies (whether honors-type undergraduates, graduate students, or college instructors), Zunshine’s book is highly recommended. No doubt the book will prove fruitful for many years to come and serve to prod more scholars into new areas of cognitive and evolutionary thought.
If one is not familiar with her, Professor Zunshine has been working in this field for quite some time – perhaps one of the pioneers. From her biography in the book, Dr. Zunshine is the Bush-Holbrook Professor of English at the University of Kentucky. She has authored or edited, or co-edited nine books (notably, for this review, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel, 2006, and Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible: Cognition, Culture, Narrative, 2008). Zunshine (per a Guggenheim fellowship) was a visiting scholar in the Department of psychology at Yale University, 2007-08. Each contributor to the volume is at least as accomplished as Professor Zunshine, so readers are in very good company.
The book itself (a sturdy paperback, good-quality paper, handsomely produced, with a cover and one in-text illustration) is divided into four parts and fourteen chapters. Part one, “Literary Universals,” contains one chapter only (Patrick Colm Hogan, on universals); part two, “Cognitive Historicism,” has five chapters (Alan Richardson on facial expression; Ellen Spolsky on brain modularity; Mary Thomas Crane on analogy; Lisa Zunshine on theory of mind; Bruce McConachie on hegemony); part three, “Cognitive Narratology,” has four chapters (David Herman on second-wave narrative theory; Alan Palmer on storyworlds; Lisa Zunshine on fictional consciousness; Blakey Vermeule on Machiavellian narratives); part four, “Cognitive Approaches in Dialogue with other Approaches (Postcolonial Studies, Ecocriticism, Aesthetics, Poststructuralism),” has four chapters (Patrick Colm Hogan on cognitive emotion; Nancy Easterlin on wayfinding; G. Gabrielle Starr on multisensory imagery; Ellen Spolsky on post-structuralism). There are notes, two bibliographies, contributor biographies, and an index.
Resisting the temptation to favor one section over another, or to point to one chapter as strongest, one as weakest, it is fair to say (without exaggeration) that the collection as a whole is quite solid (each section and chapter building cumulatively), with stellar essays by leading scholars in their fields. If you are not familiar with these scholars, the book provides an excellent path into the landscape of their intricate work. No one in literary or cultural studies – whether drama or film, visual art or literature – can afford to ignore this book and its fresh crop of thinking. Working in tandem with evolutionary studies, it is time that we see how being human means we are an evolved species with multiple adaptations to a highly complex social environment (ancient and modern) that is deeply connected to what we call culture. The book is well-edited, and all the essays are well-written, lucid, and easy (quite enjoyable) to read. Many of the essays, usefully, give brief surveys of the scholarship in particular fields. The book is also a survey of the work of its contributors, as each has written extensively on his or her subject and so (as well as offering new perspectives) positions the genesis (and implications) of each particular approach. For example, if one is already familiar with the works of Zunshine, her two contributions here provide not only a spectacular bird’s-eye view of her career but also demonstrate her readings in action.
What is cognitive cultural studies? First, Zunshine answers that question in her Introduction, and second, each contributor addresses the question in a different way. Cognitive cultural studies embraces neuroscience, discursive psychology (the cognitive process immanent in discourse, as David Herman says), cognitive and evolutionary psychology and anthropology, cognitive linguistics, and philosophy of mind. That is quite a haul, it seems; but the bundle is tied up in one word: brain. Much of psychology (to say nothing of literary analysis and what became in its early stages cultural studies) of the twentieth century (but for the final decade or so) ignored the evolutionary biology of the brain. The brain was taken as a blank slate. It was either seen as a sack to be filled or, as D.H. Lawrence said (according to Freud), a sack of horrors. This, among other things, explains why much of Freud (e.g., his notion of the Oedipus complex) is erroneous, to say nothing of his near cousins, the behaviorists (who were certain that a human being became what she is only through her environment). While some might not wholly agree with evolutionary psychology (and no one discounts the various influences of different environments), they have helped tremendously in our understanding of how the brain – the mind – is adapted: it is not a tabula rasa but comes with a built-in history and ready-made capacities. (See, e.g., the work of Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, cited in Zunshine.)
Much of Zunshine’s book builds from this general premise about the adapted mind in one way or another, and such an approach (as in evolutionary studies) can only add significantly to our understanding of the human condition. This focus is best put in a quote by Ellen Spolsky, from her book The Work of Fiction (2004), quoted in CCS: “’. . . how does the evolved architecture that grounds human cognitive processing, especially as it manifests itself in the universality of storytelling and the production of visual art, interact with the apparently open-ended set of cultural and historical contexts in which humans find themselves, so as to produce the variety of social constructions that are historically distinctive, yet also often translatable across the boundaries of time and place?’” (CCS viii). Indeed, how?
The answer – obvious but ignored for so long – is that evolved creatures with their evolutionarily inherited brain mechanisms (modules and intelligences of the mind, for building, problem-solving, socializing, &c.) – have created (and continue to create) culture. Culture is not a free-floating entity that appears magically and then impinges on us: we decide, we create, we fashion, we write, we tell stories. As David Sloan Wilson has pointed out, a totalitarian government is imposed upon people, but people ultimately opt for a democracy. Such culture is a rich combination of our ancient, early human history (hunter-gatherer groups) blended with the effects of a much more complex social fabric (towns and cities). Indeed, this is why, for instance, a boy from Brooklyn, N.Y., born in the 1950s can respond with curious humanity to the cave paintings of Lascaux or to early epics. In her Introduction, Zunshine pays homage to none other than Raymond Williams, who in The Long Revolution (1961) recognizes the evolution of the brain and its impact on culture. In this way, Zunshine says (according to Williams and Spolsky), human creative arts are modes of communication in an environment of human minds (12). We could qualify minds with the word evolved. In other words, all human minds share a common history (of sorts, according to the evolutionary psychologists). Art in all its forms is a representation of something natural, alive, and evolved; art binds the natural and social environments built into our inherited past (stored in our shared human minds). Of course these approaches have been written about, previously, in different ways – Carl G. Jung, Northrop Frye, and Joseph Campbell. The difference here, now, is that much of what the cognitive theorists (and those in evolutionary studies) have to say consists of theoretical ideas shouldered by scientific findings (whether in neuroscience, biology, or human paleontology).
It would be impossible (or impractical) to report in any detail on all fourteen essays, and depending on a reader’s research agenda, some might be of less interest than others – though each and every essay in this volume is worth considering. In fact, this book can do for cognitive studies what others – e.g., The Adapted Mind, The Cultural Animal, The Literary Animal – have done for evolutionary studies. At any rate, while Zunshine in her Introduction offers a synopticon of the volume, here is a quick run-down of the chapters, in order (as per paragraph three above).
Hogan rightly focuses on universals, via the evolutionists, rather than “cultural and historical specificity” (37) via social constructivists. As a species we share in more than in how we differ; in literary terms this means that we find in many literatures universals such as allusion, imagery, alliteration, and parallelism. Richardson’s essay could be of particular use for those in the dramatic or visual arts, but his emphasis on emotion as revealed in facial expression will not be lost on literary scholars. Spolsky works in the area of brain modularity, and (while she invokes Fodor but not Gardner or Mithen) neuroscience comes into play, especially plasticity and how social environments account for the sudden and dramatic increase in human brain development. Crane (as do others in the volume) cites George Lakoff and Mark Johnson on the fundamental importance of metaphor, and then provides a fascinating story of how analogy, rather than disappearing, became a critical-thinking tool in the seventeenth century because of new and mentally challenging scientific thought. Analogies helped close the gap between such new thought and everyday life (109) – evidenced in Donne’s poetry. Zunshine’s contribution on theory of mind is without doubt one of the most exciting – in no small part because it reveals our adapted abilities and has practical applications for literature and visual arts, drama, and film. For anyone not familiar with theory of mind: it is an ability (though at times ineffective) to read someone else’s mind – the other person’s intention or desire. McConachie (also drawing from Lakoff and Johnson) says that the evolved human brain has capacities “for many residual cultures” (143) – i.e., the concepts of time, force, space, and containment are cognitive functions apparent in cultural creations. Herman skillfully negotiates the bog between an inner realm (Descartes) and an outer realm (the behaviorists) – i.e., the mind is distributed in discourse, conversation, and social interaction. Palmer, in a twist on theory of mind, tellingly points out that readers of fiction enter a storyworld and make an effort “to follow” other (fictional) minds (177) – i.e., not just in terms of what a character thinks (or says) but how such thought is socially distributed in real behavior (which might contradict what the character thinks he believes). Zunshine insists, correctly, that literature is an outgrowth of (and consistently lubricates) the biological parts of our need to interpret other people, and proceeds to offer good examples (particularly from V. Woolf) showing the different levels of intentionality in mental thought and verbal expression. Vermeule capitalizes on what has lately become kindly known as social intelligence but which understandably continues to be labeled Machiavellian – our ancient, inherited adaptations for competition and conflict (as well as cooperation), an approach which also draws from theory of mind. Hogan in a nod to the neuroscientists (he mentions Antonio Damasio), discusses how we essentially are emotional creatures (who then think); this essay has practical applications for drama and film as well as literary works. Easterlin’s stimulating (and very personal) essay touches on what she calls our “wayfinding mind” that, literally and figuratively, is made curious by “complexity and mystery” in the environment (261). Starr adeptly negotiates the language of neuroscience and the world of literary imagery, noting how multisensory activity is vital to aesthetic experience. Spolsky surprises in an essay that, on some level, apologizes for post-structuralism, but then, on another level, brilliantly explores the “creative potential” of filling in the “gaps” of mental modules epitomized in both Darwin’s thinking and post-structuralists; however, while the essay may provoke some eyebrows to raise (“nothing could be more adaptationist, more Darwinian, than deconstruction . . .” [306] and “. . . I see the value of Darwin’s theory as a description and not as an explanation of change and adaptation” [307]), at the least researchers in the humanities are encouraged to read Darwin and biology (as well as other sciences and social sciences).
Speaking of Darwin, evolution or evolutionary thinking is apparent in many of these essays. At least six of the essays (whether intentional or not) directly address (and assume) the adaptive function of the arts. Curiously, given this motif in the book, there is no mention of any of the following people (scientists, social scientists, and humanists) working in the area of evolutionary studies: Roy F. Baumeister, Brian Boyd, Joseph Carroll, Steven W. Gangestad and Jeffry A. Simpson, Michael Gazzaniga, Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson, Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb, Jerome Kagan, Joseph LeDoux, Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson, Michelle Scalise Sugiyama, Kay Young and Jeffrey L. Saver. Kay Young’s book Imagining Minds might have coincided with the publication of the text under review, explaining its absence (but not explaining the absence of her article authored with Saver). And while some on this list might seem off-base they are not: the literary/cultural field is by its own admission looking at the continuities between our evolved animal nature and our adapted human culture. Having said that, one might ask, where then are E.O. Wilson and Frans de Waal – two leading thinkers who have consistently argued for such continuities (to the dismay of Jerome Kagan, who argues for a more distinctly human nature). Nevertheless, as an “Introduction,” and to repeat from the opening refrain of this review, Zunshine’s Cognitive Cultural Studies is an excellent text – intriguing, stimulating, well-researched, a must-read for any serious literary (or cultural) student or scholar.