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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Empathy. English literature'
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Lundberg, Elizabeth Katherine. "Reading ruptures: empathy, gender, and the literature of bodily permeability." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6185.
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The concept of empathy has long been studied by literary scholars. Empathy can refer to several different affective, political, and aesthetic phenomena, however, and its often assumed connection to reading is far from proven. This dissertation explores three specific aspects of empathy as they appear in postwar North American fiction, with special emphasis on what they suggest about empathy’s relationship to gendered embodiment. Reading Ruptures examines readerly empathy (an aesthetic encounter with literature) in representations of dubious sexual consent; affective empathy (a political sentiment) in representations of pregnancy; and communicative empathy (a linguistic trope of science fiction) in representations of language viruses. While these distinct types of empathy can be conceptualized and experienced separately, they illuminate each other’s political opportunities and challenges when placed in conversation. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that although science fiction’s contributions to this conversation have historically been undervalued, SF offers fresh insights into empathy’s continuing and evolving relevance for posthuman embodiment and postmodern literature.
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Fairlamb, Linda. "An investigation into the use of empathy in the teaching of English literature at Key Stage Three." Thesis, n.p, 2001. http://oro.open.ac.uk/18809.
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Miele, Kathryn. "Representing empathy : speaking for vulnerable bodies in Victorian medicine and culture." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2007. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4155/.
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The project of defending vulnerable bodies, whose interior experience could only be known through empathy, helped to develop nineteenth-century epistemologies of selfhood and otherness. The struggles of authors who wished to represent the sufferings and experiences of others in texts were influenced by changes in the understanding of perception and evidence (which have lately received much attention as subjects of historical inquiry). In this project I explore the attempts that were made by individuals and groups of individuals in the nineteenth century to ‘speak for’ individuals who were perceived as vulnerable: unable or less able, for some reason, to speak for themselves. I examine the strategies by which these authors attempted to achieve a kind of knowledge that amounted to sameness in difference with regard to the subjects for whom they tried to speak. These strategies can be understood as attempts to negotiate the invisible (the interiority of another individual) through the unseen, using sight in ‘non-sight’ to overcome empirical barriers to knowledge of the ‘other’. I argue that in the nineteenth century, empathy became a way of knowing, and a form of knowledge, and that the texts produced surrounding nineteenth-century ethical and social reform movements are characterized by empathic discourse.
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Passamani, Elise Gabrielle. "Empathy and narcissism in the work of Molière." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:00424b4d-ee60-439d-b136-4eb856c3a5fe.
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The aim of this thesis is to explore the comic art of Molière through the lens of empathy and narcissism, and reciprocally, to show that Molière nourishes Western thought about these phenomena, which can be viewed as opposite ends of a continuum. Every personality has some of each, but the unbalanced egoist has excessive self-love and cannot put himself in another's place. The narcissist is omnipresent in Molière's theatre, but has been heretofore unidentified as such in criticism. This work attempts to fill this gap, and accordingly, my corpus encompasses his 33 extant plays. Furthermore, these psychological concepts are inherently theatrical, especially with respect to whether or not spectators recognize themselves in characters on stage. There is a dialectic relation between reconnaissance and empathy or antipathy, and, therefore, laughter. Hence, empathy and narcissism provide a way of looking at characters on stage and at the interaction between the dramatic action and the audience. To explore the former, I investigate endogenous words Molière uses to convey empathy and narcissism; how he portrays empathizers and narcissists visually through their adherence to and breaking of social codes; and how cognition influences their ability to change. For the latter, I demonstrate how early modern querelles surrounding Molière's plays involve these notions; and how his metatheatrical discourses reveal that Molière transports his spectators 'hors de soi': a state that mirrors romantic love and provides pleasure. Taken in this framework, I argue that Molière's work can be seen as anti-narcissistic; if his spectators knew themselves in the mirror he held up, laughing was a means of precluding blind empathy. Thus, employing tools from modern psychology and neuroscience and notions from the seventeenth century, this thesis evaluates how Molière's characters provide us, today, with a means for better understanding the place of narcissism in our occidental world.
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Brett, Aidan. "SEEKING A BALANCE: THE IMPACT OF FOSTERING AUTHORIAL EMPATHY ON TEACHERS AND STUDENTS." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2018. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/509326.
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Literacy & LearnersPh.D.
This study reports on the impact of the Authorial Empathy Scale (AES), a tool designed to measure responses to literature that balance attention both to authors’ aesthetic choices and to empathetic engagement with the narrative world, on teachers’ instructional practices and students’ written and spoken responses. The research is guided by the following research questions: (1) In what ways, if any, does a literary unit intervention designed to foster readings of authorial empathy shape the teaching practice of two secondary ELA teachers? (2) In what ways, if any, does a literary unit intervention designed to foster readings of authorial empathy shape secondary students’ responses to texts? Data consist of stimulated-recall interviews and discussion transcripts of teachers and students that were analyzed for the goals, tools, and sources of their decisions. The major findings are the use of the AES seemed to facilitate a common approach among teachers and students for generating more balanced responses to texts. However, sustaining the balanced responses faced challenges in the form of institutional rubrics, IRE discussion patterns, and the specific demands of writing tasks. Students who evidenced greater mastery of the conventions of academic writing tended to generate more authorially empathetic responses to texts. During the Authorial Empathy unit, students tended to engage in more extensive and collaborative talk turns during discussion. The results make clear the importance for teachers to select texts, tasks, and tools that support the use of the AES in guiding students to respond with authorial empathy.
Temple University--Theses
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Deka, Mayuri. "Why should I read this? The Reasons and Pedagogical Tools for a Multiethnic Literature Classroom." [Kent, Ohio] : Kent State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=kent1227642880.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2008.Title from OhioLINK ETD abstract webpage (viewed Feb. 2, 2010) Advisor: Mark Bracher. Keywords: Literature; Multiethnic; Pedagogy. Includes bibliographical references.
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Närenborn, Lisa. "DID YOU FALL FOR IT? : Sympathy and Empathy in Nabokov's Lolita and The Enchanter." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Akademin för lärande, humaniora och samhälle, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-38153.
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The goal of this study was to examine if, how, and why sympathy and empathy was created in Nabokov’s two narratives dealing with pedophilia; Lolita and The Enchanter. A large amount of research did exist on this subject regarding Lolita, but not on The Enchanter. Since Nabokov has referred to The Enchanter as a kind of pre-Lolita in the “Authors Note One” in The Enchanter, I thought it would be interesting to see what similar techniques he used to generate sympathy and empathy from the reader in the two books, and to examine if they had any differences regarding the subject. After a close reading of the books, some defining features could be found to be connected to sympathy and empathy. These features had to do with the narration, the form, and the language. The protagonists used these different feature to create a bond with the reader, a bond that is then used to make the reader feel for or/and with the protagonists. Lolita is a longer, more developed, and more comprehensive story than The Enchanter which gives Humbert more time to create and use this bond with the reader. Therefore, Lolita is more likely to generate empathy and sympathy from the reader. If a reader experiences those emotions though, depends on the individual reader. All I have presented in this essay is related to how Nabokov invite empathy and sympathy from the reader when reading Lolita and The Enchanter. That does not mean all readers experience these emotions since it is an individual process that depends on how each reader interprets the narrative.
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Gonzalez, Katelynn N. "The Empathy of Immersion: An Exploration of Battlefield 1 Through the Lense of Empathetic Virtual Reality." FIU Digital Commons, 2018. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3677.
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This thesis examines two works from different mediums, the short story “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’Brien and the video game Battlefield 1, to compare how each constructs empathy using virtual reality and mimetic communication between audience and the work. The thesis draws from both digital media studies and affect theory to construct a nuanced view of how empathy functions in the works. The body responds to empathy physically. As social creatures, humans feel the emotions of those around them, even if those around them are virtually constructed. In other words, the thesis will explore how video games have been used historically and what their effects are on gamers, especially gamers’ bodies and emotional responses to the constructed virtual reality. This work aims to show how the lines of fiction and reality become blurred to establish empathy within a narrative and virtual reality space.
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Baker, Holly T. "Windows and Mirrors: A Collection of Personal Essays." Ohio : Ohio University, 2010. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1275571329.
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Irion, Katherine Ann. "A Case Study: Incorporating Young Adult Literature into General Education To Improve Intellectual and Emotional Intelligence." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/7023.
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Institutions of higher learning have required students to take general education courses since such they were conceived and implemented in the 1940s. Requirements vary widely across institutions, but there is a broad consensus that a literature course be required in order to graduate. While these courses feature many types of literature, one literary field is overwhelmingly overlooked: young adult literature. Brigham Young University has recently implemented a young adult literature course that will fulfill a general education requirement. This case study examines the question, "What might be the rationale for including a course in young adult literature as part of the general education curriculum?" The findings of this case study suggest teaching YA literature as a GE course benefits students' emotional and intellectual intelligence. Drawing on observations, interviews, students' work, and students' reflections, analysis concludes that young adult literature has the ability to be used in a university general education class to successfully teach intellectual abilities and to impart and improve emotional intelligence.
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Gardam, Sarah Christine. "THE PATHOS OF TEMPORALITY IN MID-20TH CENTURY ASIAN AMERICAN FICTION." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2018. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/487648.
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EnglishPh.D.
Lack of understanding regarding the role that temporality-pathos plays in Asian American literature leads scholars to misread many textual passages as deviations from the implied authors’ political critiques. This dissertation invites scholars to recognize temporality-focused passages in Younghill Kang’s East Goes West, Carlos Bulosan’s America is in the Heart, and John Okada’s No-No Boy, as part of a pathos formula developed by avant-garde Asian American writers to resist systemic alienations experienced by Asian Americans by diagnosing and treating America’s empathy gap. I find that each of pathae examined – the pathos of finitude, the pathos of idealism, and the pathos of confusion – appears in each of the major primary texts discussed, and that these pathae not only invite similitude-based empathy from a wide readership, but also prompt, via multiple methods, the expansion of empathy. First, the authors use these pathae diagnostically: the pathos of finitude makes visible American imperialism’s destruction of prior ways of life; the pathos of idealism exposes the falsity of the futures promised by liberalism; and the pathos of confusion counters the destructive nationalisms that fractured the era. Second, the authors use these temporality pathae to identify the instrumentalist reasoning underlying these capitalist ideologies and to show how they stunt American empathy. Third, the authors deploy formal and thematic complexities that cultivate empathy-generating faculties of mind and cultivate alternative forms of reasoning.
Temple University--Theses
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Grover, Stephen David. "Journey to the East essays /." Ohio : Ohio University, 2009. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1243969955.
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Capp, Laura. "Dramatic audition: listeners, readers, and women's dramatic monologues, 1844-1916." Diss., University of Iowa, 2010. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3438.
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The "dramatic monologue" is curiously named, given that poems of this genre often feature characters not only listening to the speakers but responding to them. While "silent auditors," as such inscribed characters are imperfectly called, are not a universal feature of the genre, their appearance is crucial when it occurs, as it turns monologue into dialogue. The scholarly attention given to such figures has focused almost exclusively upon dramatic monologues by Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, and other male poets and has consequently never illustrated how gender influences the attitudes toward and outcomes of communication as they play out in dramatic monologues. My dissertation thus explores how Victorian and modernist female poets of the dramatic monologue like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Augusta Webster, Amy Levy, and Charlotte Mew stage the relationships between the female speakers they animate and the silent auditors who listen to their desperate utterances. Given the historical tensions that surrounded any woman's speech, let alone marginalized women, the poets perform a remarkably empathetic act in embodying primarily female characters on the fringes of their social worlds--a runaway slave, a prostitute, and a modern-day Mary Magdalene, to name a few--but the dramatic monologues themselves end, overwhelmingly, in failures of communication that question the ability of dialogue to generate empathetic connections between individuals with radically different backgrounds. Silent auditors often bear the scholarly blame for such breakdowns, but I argue that the speakers reject their auditors at pivotal moments, ultimately participating in their own marginalization. The distrust these poems exhibit toward the efficacy of speaking to others, however, need not extend to the reader. Rather, the genre of the dramatic monologue offers the poets a way to sidestep dialogue altogether: by inducing the reader to inhabit the female speaker's first-person voice--the "mobile I," in Èmile Benveniste's terms--these dramatic monologues convey experience through role-play rather than speech, as speaker and reader momentarily collapse into one body and one voice. Such a move foregrounds sympathetic identification as a more powerful means of conveying experience than empathetic identification and the distance between bodies and voices it necessitates.
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Scoville, Tamara Lynn. "The Play's the Thing: Investigating the Potential of Performance Pedagogy." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2007. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2157.pdf.
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Bruner, Brittany. ""This, too, was myself": Empathic Unsettlement and the Victim/Perpetrator Binary in Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2017. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6284.
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At first glance, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a tale that reinforces binaries. One of these is the self/other binary that is central to David Hume's and Adam Smith's theories of sympathy that conceive of a self imaginatively identifying and experiencing fellow-feeling for an other. However, this notion is complicated because Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. Further, many critics argue that Stevenson actually challenges binary thinking. While Hume and Smith do not challenge the self/other binary in connection with sympathy, trauma theory critics do challenge a self/other binary that lies at the heart of sympathy: the victim/perpetrator binary. Noted trauma theorist Dominick LaCapra develops a method of empathizing called empathic unsettlement where a secondary witness listens with empathy to a victim's traumatic witness while recognizing the difference of his or her position as a witness. He argues that perpetrators may also warrant understanding, but this understanding does not come through empathy. However, one of the hallmarks of empathic unsettlement is that it does not neatly resolve or replace traumatic narratives. Therefore, I argue that empathic unsettlement could also be a useful method for allowing a perpetrator to witness. While practicing empathic unsettlement for a perpetrator may not be worth the risk in real life, performing a thought experiment in literature can test how using empathy might provide a better way to theorize perpetration. Using two witnesses who attempt to practice empathic unsettlement for Jekyll and Hyde, Dr. Hastie Lanyon (who fails), and Mr. Gabriel John Utterson (who succeeds), I will show how empathic unsettlement could be used for both a victim and perpetrator to tease out the complexities of assessing a traumatic situation.
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Heister, Hilmar [Verfasser], Flora [Akademischer Betreuer] Veit-Wild, and Carrol [Akademischer Betreuer] Clarkson. "The sympathetic imagination in the novels of J.M. Coetzee : empathy and mirror neurons in literature / Hilmar Heister. Gutachter: Flora Veit-Wild ; Carrol Clarkson." Berlin : Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät, 2015. http://d-nb.info/1069938335/34.
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Wikman, Hannes. "Racism, Mark Twain and Close Reading in the English Language Classroom." Thesis, Örebro universitet, Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-83604.
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This essay argues that Mark Twain’s novels The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Pudd’nhead Wilson can be applied in Swedish upper secondary schools to address racial inequality in the purpose of achieving intercultural competence and understanding. Racism is a vast issue, evident in both schools and in our society, locally as well as globally, where ethnical minorities are abused or disfavored societal privileges. This leaves teachers with the vital task of counteracting racism in classrooms, in accordance with the educational goals of imparting democratic values. The essay is conducted through a Close Reading, which is beneficial in exposing a text’s complexity by examining its literary aspects. The primary focus from the Close Reading is put on narration and its subordinate categories. Word choice, repetition or metaphors are highlighted and analyzed from the selected passages as they are literary aspects that the students can react to and further discuss in relation to racism in their everyday lives. The findings show that Twain’s ways of narrating racism and stimulating empathy are integral features in promoting an increased understanding to meet the curriculum’s requirements.
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Heister, Hilmar. "The sympathetic imagination in the novels of J.M. Coetzee." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/17186.
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In dieser Studie wird umfassend untersucht, wie sich die sympathetic imagination im Werk von J.M. Coetzee entwickelt. Zugrunde liegt die Annahme, dass die Art und Weise wie J.M. Coetzee seine sympathetic imagination zum Einsatz bringt die Empathiefähigkeit des Lesers zu steigern vermag. Ausgangspunkt für die Untersuchung und deren zentrale Analysekategorien für die Besprechung der Romane Coetzees ist ein Blick auf Spiegelneuronen als neuronale Grundlage für Empathie, ein relative neues und stetig sich erweiterndes Feld. Geteilte Aufmerksamkeit (shared attention) und Perspektivübernahme (perspective-taking) bilden den Mittelpunkt bei neurowissenschaftlichen Diskussionen über den Zusammenhang zwischen Spiegelneuronen und Empathie. Eine Analyse von Coetzees Romanen zeigt, dass in seiner Literatur vergleichbare Mechanismen zur Wirkung kommen.The following study attempts a comprehensive evaluation of how the sympathetic imagination evolves in the works of J.M. Coetzee. The underlying assumption is that the way Coetzee employs his sympathetic imagination in his fiction enhances the reader’s empathetic capabilities. A starting point for the central categories of analysis and the close readings of his novels will be a brief exploration of the neuronal basis of empathy as discussed in the context of the discovery of and continuously extending research on mirror neurons as the neurological basis for empathy. Shared attention and perspective-taking constitute the focus of neuroscientific discussions of the connection between empathy and mirror neurons. A close look at Coetzee’s fiction will reveal comparable mechanisms in literary representation.