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Literature and Social Justice: Protest Novels, Cognitive Politics, and Schema Criticism
Can reading social protest novels actually produce a more just world? Literature and Social Justice offers a scientifically informed, evidence-based affirmative answer to that crucial question, arguing that literature has the potential—albeit largely unrealized—to produce lasting, socially transformative psychological changes in readers. Moving beyond traditional social criticism in its various forms, including feminist, gender, queer, and postcolonialist approaches, Mark Bracher uses new knowledge concerning the cognitive structures and processes that constitute the psychological roots of social injustice to develop a detailed, systematic critical strategy that he calls “schema criticism,” which can be applied to literature and other discourses to maximize and extend their potential for promoting social justice.

Bracher draws on studies in social cognition, social neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, political psychology, and psychoanalysis to uncover the root cognitive structures that cause misunderstandings among people and give rise to social injustice. Using the novels The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath, and Native Son, he then demonstrates how schema criticism can correct these faulty cognitive structures and enable readers to develop more accurate and empathetic views of those they deem “Other,” as well as become more aware of their own cognitive processes. Calling the book “insightful, erudite, and humane,” Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture Series coeditor Patrick Colm Hogan says, “This inspiring book should be welcomed by literary critics, political activists, and anyone who cares about social justice.”

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Literature and Social Justice: Protest Novels, Cognitive Politics, and Schema Criticism
Can reading social protest novels actually produce a more just world? Literature and Social Justice offers a scientifically informed, evidence-based affirmative answer to that crucial question, arguing that literature has the potential—albeit largely unrealized—to produce lasting, socially transformative psychological changes in readers. Moving beyond traditional social criticism in its various forms, including feminist, gender, queer, and postcolonialist approaches, Mark Bracher uses new knowledge concerning the cognitive structures and processes that constitute the psychological roots of social injustice to develop a detailed, systematic critical strategy that he calls “schema criticism,” which can be applied to literature and other discourses to maximize and extend their potential for promoting social justice.

Bracher draws on studies in social cognition, social neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, political psychology, and psychoanalysis to uncover the root cognitive structures that cause misunderstandings among people and give rise to social injustice. Using the novels The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath, and Native Son, he then demonstrates how schema criticism can correct these faulty cognitive structures and enable readers to develop more accurate and empathetic views of those they deem “Other,” as well as become more aware of their own cognitive processes. Calling the book “insightful, erudite, and humane,” Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture Series coeditor Patrick Colm Hogan says, “This inspiring book should be welcomed by literary critics, political activists, and anyone who cares about social justice.”

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Literature and Social Justice: Protest Novels, Cognitive Politics, and Schema Criticism

Literature and Social Justice: Protest Novels, Cognitive Politics, and Schema Criticism

by Mark Bracher
Literature and Social Justice: Protest Novels, Cognitive Politics, and Schema Criticism

Literature and Social Justice: Protest Novels, Cognitive Politics, and Schema Criticism

by Mark Bracher

Overview

Can reading social protest novels actually produce a more just world? Literature and Social Justice offers a scientifically informed, evidence-based affirmative answer to that crucial question, arguing that literature has the potential—albeit largely unrealized—to produce lasting, socially transformative psychological changes in readers. Moving beyond traditional social criticism in its various forms, including feminist, gender, queer, and postcolonialist approaches, Mark Bracher uses new knowledge concerning the cognitive structures and processes that constitute the psychological roots of social injustice to develop a detailed, systematic critical strategy that he calls “schema criticism,” which can be applied to literature and other discourses to maximize and extend their potential for promoting social justice.

Bracher draws on studies in social cognition, social neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, political psychology, and psychoanalysis to uncover the root cognitive structures that cause misunderstandings among people and give rise to social injustice. Using the novels The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath, and Native Son, he then demonstrates how schema criticism can correct these faulty cognitive structures and enable readers to develop more accurate and empathetic views of those they deem “Other,” as well as become more aware of their own cognitive processes. Calling the book “insightful, erudite, and humane,” Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture Series coeditor Patrick Colm Hogan says, “This inspiring book should be welcomed by literary critics, political activists, and anyone who cares about social justice.”

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781477302095
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication date: 09/15/2013
Series: Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture Series
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 350
Product dimensions: 9.00(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Mark Bracher is Professor of English and Director of the Center for Literature and Psychoanalysis at Kent State University. He is the author of Radical Pedagogy: Identity, Generativity, and Social Tranformation (Palgrave, 2006) and The Writing Cure: Psychoanalysis, Composition, and the Aims of Education (SIU Press, 1999).

Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Acknowledgments
  • Part I. The Psychological Basis for a Cognitive Politics of Social Justice
  • Chapter 1. Cognitive Science for a New Social Criticism
  • Part II. The Cognitive Roots of Injustice: Four Person-Schemas
  • Chapter 2. Autonomism versus Situationism: Responsibility for Behavior and Life Outcomes
  • Chapter 3. Essentialism versus Malleability: Responsibility for Character
  • Chapter 4. Atomism versus Solidarity: Relation of Self to Others
  • Chapter 5. Homogeneity versus Heterogeneity: The Structure of Character
  • Part III. How Protest Novels Work to Replace Faulty Person-Schemas
  • Chapter 6. The Jungle
  • Chapter 7. The Grapes of Wrath
  • Chapter 8. Native Son
  • Part IV. A Radical Cognitive Social Criticism
  • Chapter 9. Schema Criticism: Radical Cognitive Politics
  • Notes
  • Works Cited
  • Index
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