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To take W.H. Auden’s “poetry makes nothing happen” at its word would be to ignore what happens while reading a poem: not only linguistic meaning, but also imagined experiences of emotions, persons, places, times, voices, imagery, and sensations. What Poetry Makes Happen draws on theoretical and empirical perspectives from the cognitive sciences to explicate how language on the page guides imagining in the reader’s brain, and to explain the actual effects of ‘virtual’ experiences. Though multisensory imaginings are ‘nothing’ from an external perspective, neurocognitive theory treats them as real happenings constituted by the brain’s circuits for actual perception, emotion, and action. Imagination is not a distinct faculty of segregated fictions, it is a multi-system activity always-already integrated with the cognitive structures of non-literary life. I argue that non-linguistic imaginings both ground and complicate our construals and interpretations of a poem, and connect poetic techniques to aesthetic effects as happening to the reader. Because poetic experience is composed from existing cognitive structures, imagining a poem’s “way of happening” can modify readers’ dispositions and form new cognitive resources. By analyzing these interactions, I make an empirically-grounded case for certain poems’ potential to influence some of what happens in the world.In order to unpack the intricacies of aesthetic experience itself, and to build from that analytic appreciation to consideration of imagined experiences’ social values, my dissertation alternates between two parallel sequences of inquiry. Both progress from the more textual to the more diegetic dimensions of imagining. Chapters one, three, and five recursively examine John Keats’s vivid-yet-ambiguous “This living hand,” explicating how its textual structures guide semantic/affective, personal/loco-temporal, and vocal/perceptual experiences, respectively. While critics have deemed “This living hand” contradictory or

To take W.H. Auden’s “poetry makes nothing happen” at its word would be to ignore what happens while reading a poem: not only linguistic meaning, but also imagined experiences of emotions, persons, places, times, voices, imagery, and sensations. What Poetry Makes Happen draws on theoretical and empirical perspectives from the cognitive sciences to explicate how language on the page guides imagining in the reader’s brain, and to explain the actual effects of ‘virtual’ experiences. Though multisensory imaginings are ‘nothing’ from an external perspective, neurocognitive theory treats them as real happenings constituted by the brain’s circuits for actual perception, emotion, and action. Imagination is not a distinct faculty of segregated fictions, it is a multi-system activity always-already integrated with the cognitive structures of non-literary life. I argue that non-linguistic imaginings both ground and complicate our construals and interpretations of a poem, and connect poetic techniques to aesthetic effects as happening to the reader. Because poetic experience is composed from existing cognitive structures, imagining a poem’s “way of happening” can modify readers’ dispositions and form new cognitive resources. By analyzing these interactions, I make an empirically-grounded case for certain poems’ potential to influence some of what happens in the world.In order to unpack the intricacies of aesthetic experience itself, and to build from that analytic appreciation to consideration of imagined experiences’ social values, my dissertation alternates between two parallel sequences of inquiry. Both progress from the more textual to the more diegetic dimensions of imagining. Chapters one, three, and five recursively examine John Keats’s vivid-yet-ambiguous “This living hand,” explicating how its textual structures guide semantic/affective, personal/loco-temporal, and vocal/perceptual experiences, respectively. While critics have deemed “This living hand” contradictory or

To take W.H. Auden’s “poetry makes nothing happen” at its word would be to ignore what happens while reading a poem: not only linguistic meaning, but also imagined experiences of emotions, persons, places, times, voices, imagery, and sensations. What Poetry Makes Happen draws on theoretical and empirical perspectives from the cognitive sciences to explicate how language on the page guides imagining in the reader’s brain, and to explain the actual effects of ‘virtual’ experiences. Though multisensory imaginings are ‘nothing’ from an external perspective, neurocognitive theory treats them as real happenings constituted by the brain’s circuits for actual perception, emotion, and action. Imagination is not a distinct faculty of segregated fictions, it is a multi-system activity always-already integrated with the cognitive structures of non-literary life. I argue that non-linguistic imaginings both ground and complicate our construals and interpretations of a poem, and connect poetic techniques to aesthetic effects as happening to the reader. Because poetic experience is composed from existing cognitive structures, imagining a poem’s “way of happening” can modify readers’ dispositions and form new cognitive resources. By analyzing these interactions, I make an empirically-grounded case for certain poems’ potential to influence some of what happens in the world.In order to unpack the intricacies of aesthetic experience itself, and to build from that analytic appreciation to consideration of imagined experiences’ social values, my dissertation alternates between two parallel sequences of inquiry. Both progress from the more textual to the more diegetic dimensions of imagining. Chapters one, three, and five recursively examine John Keats’s vivid-yet-ambiguous “This living hand,” explicating how its textual structures guide semantic/affective, personal/loco-temporal, and vocal/perceptual experiences, respectively. While critics have deemed “This living hand” contradictory or

The first decade of the twentieth century was a time of unprecedented epistemic polarization in the American academy. The “tender-minded” orientation of idealism, to borrow William James’s turn of phrase, was quickly ceding ground to the “tough-minded” orientation of scientific materialism on the assumption that, before long, all serious consideration of human experience, meaning and value was destined to come under the care of newly-minted human sciences such as anthropology, psychology, and sociology. This left traditional humanists resentful of what must have seemed to them a kind of epistemic mission creep: the empirical sciences, riding high on the strength of triumphs in fields such as radioactivity and electromagnetics, were suddenly staking claim to territories that had once been the province of literature, religion and philosophy. One dominant view has been that modernist literature comes into being on the hot fumes of this resentment. Frank Kermode, for example, saw modernism as “a rapprochement between poet and occultist” so that “magic came, in an age of science, to the defence of poetry.” Since modernism is an elastic term, there is an element of truth in this view. But many modernists were, especially in the early years, anything but eager to indulge in a revanchist mysticism that abstracted away from the vitalizing energy of the modern sciences. In particular, T.S. Eliot, whose graduate work in philosophy brought him into close proximity to the scientific currents of the day, produced a body of criticism that reveals a sophisticated and remarkably coherent cognitive structure corresponding with his aim to find in poetry a literary form that could unite “feeling” and “thought.” Felt Thought begins by establishing Eliot’s motivation both to embrace and to resist the computational ideal of intelligence that was being codified during the period in which he was writing, an ideal that would reach its apotheosis in the 1940s and 1950s with the birth of artif

The first decade of the twentieth century was a time of unprecedented epistemic polarization in the American academy. The “tender-minded” orientation of idealism, to borrow William James’s turn of phrase, was quickly ceding ground to the “tough-minded” orientation of scientific materialism on the assumption that, before long, all serious consideration of human experience, meaning and value was destined to come under the care of newly-minted human sciences such as anthropology, psychology, and sociology. This left traditional humanists resentful of what must have seemed to them a kind of epistemic mission creep: the empirical sciences, riding high on the strength of triumphs in fields such as radioactivity and electromagnetics, were suddenly staking claim to territories that had once been the province of literature, religion and philosophy. One dominant view has been that modernist literature comes into being on the hot fumes of this resentment. Frank Kermode, for example, saw modernism as “a rapprochement between poet and occultist” so that “magic came, in an age of science, to the defence of poetry.” Since modernism is an elastic term, there is an element of truth in this view. But many modernists were, especially in the early years, anything but eager to indulge in a revanchist mysticism that abstracted away from the vitalizing energy of the modern sciences. In particular, T.S. Eliot, whose graduate work in philosophy brought him into close proximity to the scientific currents of the day, produced a body of criticism that reveals a sophisticated and remarkably coherent cognitive structure corresponding with his aim to find in poetry a literary form that could unite “feeling” and “thought.” Felt Thought begins by establishing Eliot’s motivation both to embrace and to resist the computational ideal of intelligence that was being codified during the period in which he was writing, an ideal that would reach its apotheosis in the 1940s and 1950s with the birth of artif

We have reached the end of the history of art, says Arthur Danto. Contemporary arts exist laterally in such a myriad of forms and theories that one can no longer give art's progression a narrative format. Danto's essay, and the discussions that follow it, explores the ramifications of this position. While modernism sought after what art itself is, what it is in its essence, and thus opened up diverse forms of exploration, this alone cannot explain how we got to the state of art as it is now, that of "anything goes." Danto informs us that this "end" of art should not leave us depressed or alarmed, but rather exhilarated, as a "liberation of art beyond history" opens up new possibilities of creation already being implemented in the diverse applications of contemporary artists.

We have reached the end of the history of art, says Arthur Danto. Contemporary arts exist laterally in such a myriad of forms and theories that one can no longer give art's progression a narrative format. Danto's essay, and the discussions that follow it, explores the ramifications of this position. While modernism sought after what art itself is, what it is in its essence, and thus opened up diverse forms of exploration, this alone cannot explain how we got to the state of art as it is now, that of "anything goes." Danto informs us that this "end" of art should not leave us depressed or alarmed, but rather exhilarated, as a "liberation of art beyond history" opens up new possibilities of creation already being implemented in the diverse applications of contemporary artists.

This anthology commprises 17 essays inspired by Derrida's writings on art and literature. A variety of interpretations of and critical approaches to Derrida's work is included. Short biographies on contributors. Name index. Circa 100 bibl. ref.

This anthology commprises 17 essays inspired by Derrida's writings on art and literature. A variety of interpretations of and critical approaches to Derrida's work is included. Short biographies on contributors. Name index. Circa 100 bibl. ref.

University of Michigan., Vol. 1, no. 2- issued as the University of Michigan official publication, v. 63, no. 74, Electronic serial mode of access: World Wide Web., Michigan quarterly review, Michigan quarterly review. : Vol XXIII : Issue 4, (dlps) volume: act2080.0023.004, (dlps) article: act2080.0023.004:24, These pages may freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Please contact spo-help@umich.edu for more information.

University of Michigan., Vol. 1, no. 2- issued as the University of Michigan official publication, v. 63, no. 74, Electronic serial mode of access: World Wide Web., Michigan quarterly review, Michigan quarterly review. : Vol XXIII : Issue 4, (dlps) volume: act2080.0023.004, (dlps) article: act2080.0023.004:24, These pages may freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Please contact spo-help@umich.edu for more information.