New Beginnings In Literary Studies

Features of New Beginnings in Literary Studies

Product DescriptionTraditional studies of literature have developed approaches ranging from historical, hermeneutic, critical, close reading and author studies perspectives. The present volume shows that there is much, much more to analysing literary texts, their readers, the literary system, movies, their structure and their effects. These diverse new ways of looking at literature are exemplified in this volume. The volume shows how these various approaches can be carried out in concrete projects in the area of literatury studies. Twenty-three chapters encompass research on literary studies from perspectives of psychology, linguistics, anthroplogy, history, sociology, computer science. The contributors demonstrate in non-technical language the amplitude of detail and insight that can be gained from such a wider perspective on the study of literary texts. The interdisciplinary diversity of the study of literature may launch itself as a New Beginnings in Literary Studies indeed.About the AuthorWillie van Peer holds a Ph.D. from Lancaster University, and is Professor of Literary Studies and Intercultural Hermeneutics at the University of Munich, former President of IGEL (International Association for the Empirical Study of Literature) and of PALA (Poetics and Linguistics Association). He is the author of several books and many articles on poetics and the epistemological foundations of literary studies, including Stylistics and Psychology: Investigations of Foregrounding (London, 1986). Jan Auracher is junior lecturer at the University of Munich, Germany, where he teaches empirical methodology and statistical analysis in intercultural studies. He studied German as a Foreign Language, computer science, and neurobiology at the University of Munich, and has been a teacher of German in Japan, Korea, and Canada. His Ph.D. was on psychophysiological measurements of reader reactions to narrative perspective in suspense stories. Currently he is involved in validating computerbased text analysis through the observation of psychological and bio-psychological reader response. In addition, he is engaged in a comparative study of German and Japanese information processing, regarding reading as well as writing.