CFP: Neuroscience and Modern Fiction

[Krafft, John M.]

Call for Papers: Upcoming Special Issue of Modern Fiction Studies

Neuroscience and Modern Fiction
Guest Editor: Stephen J. Burn
Deadline for Submissions: 1 February 2014

The Editors of MFS seek essays that consider how modern fiction has
evolved in dialogue with the neuroscientific revolution. In the
aftermath of the so-called “Decade of the Brain” (the 1990s), a new
wave of accessible surveys of brain research propounded a
neuro-rhetoric that increasingly presents itself as the authoritative
mode for addressing the total constellation of experience that once
constituted the novel’s natural territory. But while scholars have
drawn on the new sciences of mind to retool narratological studies and
to facilitate Cognitive Historicist readings of classic literary
texts, literary critics have rarely explored the ways that modern
fiction has absorbed or contested the influence of neuroscience
thought. What implications does the fertile intersection of
neuroscience and narrative carry for fiction’s traditional building
blocks (character motivation, plot structures, narrative
architecture)? How does the novel’s language evolve in response to
neuro-rhetoric? In terms of the broader conceptual issues, how is the
neuroscientific conception of the self challenged or explored in
fiction? What are the epistemological consequences of neural
determinism for the novel’s fascination with contingency? How do our
notions of genre evolve in a neurocentric age?

Such examples are indicative not exhaustive, and we invite essays that
explore how modern fiction has engaged with the new sciences of mind.
Essays on individual writers and works are welcome, as well as essays
on broader trends and issues raised by literature’s
cross-fertilization with neuroscience.

Essays should be 7,000 - 8,500 words, including all quotations and
bibliographic references, and should follow the MLA Style Manual (7th
edition) for internal citation and Works Cited. Please submit your
essay via the online submission form at the following web address:
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/mfs/special_issues/

Queries should be directed to Stephen J. Burn (sburn at nmu.edu).

[Stephen tells me he'd like to see Pynchon's work represented in the issue.]