How do poems and novels create a sense of mind? What does literary
criticism say in conversation with other disciplines that addresses
problems of consciousness? In Paper Minds, Jonathan Kramnick takes up
these vital questions, exploring the relations between mind and
environment, the literary forms that uncover such associations, and the
various fields of study that work to illuminate them.
Opening with a discussion of how literary scholarship's particular
methods can both complement and remain in tension with corresponding
methods particular to the sciences, Paper Minds then turns to a series
of sharply defined case studies. Ranging from eighteenth-century poetry
and haptic theories of vision, to fiction and contemporary problems of
consciousness, to landscapes in which all matter is sentient, to
cognitive science and the rise of the novel, Kramnick's essays are
united by a central thematic authority. This unified approach of these
essays shows us what distinctive knowledge that literary texts and
literary criticism can contribute to discussions of perceptual
consciousness, created and natural environments, and skilled engagements
with the world.