Imagining Minds

The Neuro-Aesthetics of Austen, Eliot, and Hardy: Theory Interpretation Narrative

By: Kay Young

Narrated by: Cynthia Wallace

Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy-three great masters of the English novel-are three remarkable imagining minds. As readers of their novels, we feel ourselves to be in contact with their authorial minds and conjure the minds they create spread across the pages of their narrative worlds. In the way that we believe in and hold in mind the idea that other human beings have minds of their own do we as readers of the novel believe we are in the presence of these other minds. But how?

Imagining Minds explores how the novels of Austen, Eliot, and Hardy create the felt-quality of their authoring minds and of the minds they author by bringing their writing in relation to cognitive neuroscience accounts of the mind-brain, especially of William James and Antonio Damasio. It is in that relational space between the novels and theories of mind-brain that Kay Young works through her fundamental claim: the novel writes about the nature of mind, narrates it at work, and stimulates us to know deepened experiences of consciousness in its touching of our reading minds.

While, in addition to James and Damasio, Young draws on a range of theories of mind-brain generated by current research in philosophy, neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis to help her understand the novel's imagining of mind, her claim is that those disciplines cannot themselves perform the more fully integrated because embodied and emotionally stimulating mind work of the novel-mind work that prompts us as their readers to better know our own minds.

©2010 The Ohio State University (P)2012 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

“Books that manage to bridge two cultures remain a rare commodity, no doubt because authors who can fill the in-between void are hard to find. Imagining Minds is such a book and Kay Young is such an author; I recommend both without reservation. Kay Young is an original scholar, possessed of a fresh voice.” (Antonio Damasio, author of Descartes' Error)

More narratology!

If you could sum up Imagining Minds in three words, what would they be?

It is great to see books on this subject being produced. I hope Audible will add more narratology titles

Who was your favorite character and why?

N/A

What does Cynthia Wallace bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

It is nice to have someone read when my eyes are tired

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

N/A