Cognitive sciences and medieval studies : an introduction PDF
Preview Cognitive sciences and medieval studies : an introduction
RELIGION AND CULTURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Cognitive Sciences and Medieval Studies 00 Prelims Cognitive 2020_10_20.indd 1 20-Oct-20 4:46:45 PM Series Editors Denis Renevey (Université de Lausanne) Diane Watt (University of Surrey) Editorial Board Miri Rubin (Queen Mary University of London) Jean-C laude Schmitt (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) Fiona Somerset (Duke University) Christiania Whitehead (University of Warwick) 00 Prelims Cognitive 2020_10_20.indd 2 20-Oct-20 4:46:45 PM RELIGION AND CULTURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Cognitive Sciences and Medieval Studies An Introduction edited by JULIANA DRESvINA and vICTORIA BLUD UNIvERSITY OF WALES PRESS 2020 00 Prelims Cognitive 2020_10_20.indd 3 20-Oct-20 4:46:45 PM © The Contributors, 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NS. www.uwp.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-78683-674-8 e-I SBN 978-1-78683-675-5 The rights of The Contributors to be identified as authors of this work have been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Typeset by Eira Fenn Gaunt, Pentyrch, Cardiff Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Melksham, Wiltshire 00 Prelims Cognitive 2020_10_20.indd 4 20-Oct-20 4:46:46 PM Contents Series Editors’ Preface vii Acknowledgements ix List of Illustrations xi Notes on Contributors xiii Introduction: Cognitive Sciences and Medieval Studies 1 Victoria Blud and Juliana Dresvina I QUESTIONS OF METHOD 1 How Modular Are Medieval Cognitive Theories? José Filipe Silva 23 2 An Unrealised Conversation: Medieval Mysticism and the Common Core Thesis Ralph W. Hood Jr 39 3 Questions of Value: Brain Science, Aesthetics and Art in the Neurohumanities Matthew Rampley 59 II CASE STUDIES: HISTORIES OF NEUROSCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY AND MENTAL ILLNESS 4 Neuroscience and the Dialectics of History Daniel Lord Smail 83 5 Medieval English Understanding of Mental Illness and Parallel Diagnosis to Contemporary Neuroscience Wendy J. Turner 97 6 Attachment Theory for Historians of Medieval Religion: An Introduction Juliana Dresvina 121 III CASE STUDIES: READING TEXTS AND MINDS 7 ‘A Knot So Suttel and So Mighty’: On Knitting, Academic Writing and Julian of Norwich Godelinde Gertrude Perk 145 8 Making Up a Mind: ‘4E’ Cognition and the Medieval Subject Victoria Blud 163 00 Prelims Cognitive 2020_10_20.indd 5 20-Oct-20 4:46:46 PM 9 Cognitive Approaches to Affective Poetics in Early English Literature Antonina Harbus 183 Iv CASE STUDIES: APPROACHING ART AND ARTEFACTS 10 Medieval Art History and Neuroscience: An Introduction Nadia Pawelchak 199 11 Spoons, Whorls, and Caroles: How Medieval Artefacts Can Help Keep Your Brain on Its Toes Jeff Rider 217 Afterword: The Medieval Brain and Modern Neuroscience John Onians 237 Index 245 00 Prelims Cognitive 2020_10_20.indd 6 20-Oct-20 4:46:46 PM Series Editors’ Preface Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages aims to explore the interface between medieval religion and culture, with as broad an understanding of those terms as possible. It puts to the forefront studies which engage with works that significantly contributed to the shaping of medieval culture. However, it also gives attention to studies dealing with works that reflect and highlight aspects of medieval culture that have been neglected in the past by scholars of the medieval disciplines. For example, devotional works and the practice they infer illuminate our understanding of the medieval subject and its culture in remarkable ways, while studies of the material space designed and inhabited by medieval subjects yield new evidence on the period and the people who shaped it and lived in it. In the larger field of religion and culture, we also want to explore further the roles played by women as authors, readers and owners of books, thereby defining them more precisely as actors in the cultural field. The series as a whole investigates the European Middle Ages, from c.500 to c.1500. Our aim is to explore medieval religion and culture with the tools belonging to such disciplines as, among others, art history, philosophy, theology, history, musicology, the history of medicine, and literature. In particular, we would like to promote interdisciplinary studies, as we believe strongly that our modern understanding of the term applies fascinatingly well to a cultural period marked by a less tight confinement and categorization of its disciplines than the modern period. However, our only criterion is academic excellence, with the belief that the use of a large diversity of critical tools and theoretical approaches enables a deeper understanding of medieval culture. We want the series to reflect this diversity, as we believe that, as a collection of outstanding contributions, it offers a more subtle representation of a period that is marked by paradoxes and contradictions and which necessarily reflects diversity and difference, however difficult it may sometimes have proved for medieval culture to accept these notions. 00 Prelims Cognitive 2020_10_20.indd 7 20-Oct-20 4:46:46 PM Acknowledgements During the writing and editing of this volume we have been the grateful recipients of advice, feedback and responses from scholars both within and outside the ‘cognitive medievalism’ enclave. This volume is much the richer for the expertise and academic kindnesses of numerous colleagues and friends, and in particular we would like to thank: Alex Anokhina, Alan Costall, Rick Cooper, Laura Crombie, Greg Currie, Line Engh, Daniel Gerrard, Michael Moore, Sarah Salih, Debs Thorpe, Stephanie Trigg and Kathleen Walker-Meikle. We would also like to acknowledge the support of our respective institutions, the University of Oxford and the University of York, and particularly The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) for their help in securing images. Several chapters in this volume were also supported by individual grants, which are acknowledged separately. The two anonymous readers for University of Wales Press gave us some tremendously helpful insight and incisive suggestions, and we thank them for helping us make this a better volume. Finally, our heartfelt thanks go to Sian Chapman, Dafydd Jones, Bethan Phillips and all the team at University of Wales Press, to Heather Palomino for her careful copyediting, and especially to Sarah Lewis, our endlessly patient and supportive editor. 00 Prelims Cognitive 2020_10_20.indd 9 20-Oct-20 4:46:46 PM
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