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Reading Faulkner's Minds
Krtička, Filip ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Arbeit, Marcel (referee) ; Bílek, Petr (referee)
The present dissertation focuses on the work of William Faulkner in relation to the concept of mind as conceived by the second wave cognitive sciences. This concept radically challenges previous notions such as cartesian dualism and physicalism which equates mind with the brain and puts forth the human mind as embodied, embedded in the environment, extended beyond the skin, enacted in a particular situation, and encultured, being both a product and a producer of culture. Such a vision changes the landscape of phenomena that fall under the label "mind" and has implications for the study of minds within literature as well. Literature and narrative art constitute a rich source of insights on the human mind and are treated here as an autonomous discourse on human cognition without necessarily seeking confirmation by the sciences. Since it represents a new discipline among approaches to Faulkner's oeuvre, I discuss cognitive literary studies and their relation to cognitive sciences as well as more traditional literary studies arguing for a cognitive approach to literature guided by the discipline's distinctive methods, goals and object of study. In his works, Faulkner narratively presents human cognition as transcending the boundaries of the skull, being formed by both natural and social spheres, by...
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