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About Diegesis In Mind

Diegesis in Mind aims to encourage and support the use of cognitive (‘mind’) science to study ancient narrative (‘diegesis’). We intend to be an intellectual nucleus for continuing scholarly dialogue about methods, standards, prospects, and limitations of using cognitive disciplines to study ancient narrative texts and other media across disciplines. This project is a collaboration between Baylor University and the University of Bonn, supported by the University of Bonn and University of St Andrews Collaboration Grant.

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BLOG POST | 1. December 2023

Narrative Space and Possible Worlds: Encountering Ancient Narratives from a Cognitive Science Perspective

Since March 2023 I have had the privilege and pleasure to lead with Jan Rüggemeier an exciting collaborative research project on Narrative Space and Possible Worlds: Encountering Ancient Narratives from a Cognitive Science Perspective. The project, funded by the St Andrews-Bonn Collaborative Research Grant Programme, aims to bring together researchers based at the University of St Andrews and the University of Bonn from a variety of disciplines (Classics, Biblical Studies, ...
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BLOG POST | 1. November 2023

How do We Recognize and Read Metaphors in Ancient Texts?

How does a scholar reading an ancient text know that a word is being used metaphorically? I don’t think that we have the intuitive luxury in reading an ancient text that we have with our native language. I don’t think we can accurately make intuitive determinations when studying word forms that come to us, so to speak, out of nowhere. Instead we must rely soley on a mechanical procedure which ...
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BLOG POST | 1. October 2023

Aristotle’s Metaphor of “Metaphor”

I find Stephan George’s 1914 poem entitled Das Wort (The Word) fascinating because it powerfully illustrates the untranslatable nature of metaphors from one language to another. It is about a traveler who was in the habit of bringing back to his country a wonder or a dream from the places he had been. Upon returning to his land, he would bring what he found to Fate (Norn) who would find ...
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BLOG POST | 1. September 2023

Monks & Saints: Blended Viewpoint in the Construction of Selves

Eve Sweetser hosts an interview with Historian LIne Cecile Engh and Cognitive Scientist Mark Turner on their research about how vivid physical metaphors in medieval monastic training manuals helped novices to form "blended selves" that shaped their identity as monks and as persons. ...
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BLOG POST | 1. September 2023

Is This the End? A Neurocognitive Approach to End Time Narratives (ETNs)

From ancient to modern times, representations of end time scenarios have not only remained popular, but they have been instrumental in shaping people’s thoughts and actions in many different contexts. But how do End Time Narratives achieve their effects on readers, listeners, or viewers? Melissa Sayyad Bach presupposes that ETNs exercise their immense fascination, and their effects, by triggering certain underlying neurocognitive mechanisms... ...
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BLOG POST | 22. June 2023

Peter Stockwell on Cognitive Poetics (part 4)

In this final instalment of an interview with Peter Stockwell, he discusses the biggest obstacles to interpreting ancient texts, how cognitive poetics an help, and the extent to which we can apply matters of modern psychology to the ancient mind. ...
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BLOG POST | 29. August 2022

Welcome to Diegesis In Mind

Diegesis in Mind aims to encourage and support the use of cognitive (‘mind’) science to study ancient narrative (‘diegesis’). We intend to be an intellectual nucleus for continuing scholarly dialogue about methods, standards, prospects, and limitations of using cognitive disciplines to study ancient narrative texts and other media across disciplines.
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BLOG POST | 7. June 2023

Peter Stockwell on Cognitive Poetics (part 2)

In this second instalment of the interview with Peter Stockwell, he defines ‘cognitive poetics’ and explains how cognitive science has changed the landscape of inquiry into the study of language and literature. ...
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BLOG POST | 1. June 2023

Peter Stockwell and Cognitive Poetics: Interview, Part 1

June special! This is the first of four weekly instalments of an interview with Peter Stockwell, Professor of English at the University of Nottingham and author of Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction (2d ed.; Routledge, 2019). Here, Peter describes how he began to use of cognitive science to study literature, and simultaneously gives us a window into how cognitive science entered literary studies altogether. ...
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BLOG POST | 1. June 2023

Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Interpretation

The cognitive structuring of language points, furthermore, to the importance of metaphors. Cognitive models, populated by encyclopedic knowledge, provide the patterns through which we apprehend our experiences. Thus, experience is never unmediated. Language, therefore, is ultimately metaphorical since our apprehensions of reality are always representational. ...
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BLOG POST | 2. May 2023

Cognitive Linguistics and Characterization in Euripides’ Electra

Evert van Emde Boas explains two ways that "cognitive sciences might help us understand what goes on in literary characterization" in Euripides' Electra: "First, they might help us get to grips with how the interpretation of characters actually works, that is, with what goes on in our brains and bodies when we meet characters in literature, drama, or film." And second, these insights "can help us understand issues of literary ...
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