Engaged Reading as Mental Work: Reflections on Teaching Cognitive Narratology

This article presents an account of the design and perceived results of a course on cognitive narratology. The course aims to introduce the theoretical apparatus of cognitive narratology, including issues such as social cognition (mind reading) and the mental construction of fictional worlds. Students explore these issues by reading and analyzing science fiction and fantasy texts in which various narrative conventions are concretized within what would normally be impossible worlds and scenarios. The aim in using texts from popular genres is both to create in students reading experiences that engage their imaginations and to give them explicit illustrations of the cognitive functions of narrative. Of these functions, the course focuses on literature as mental work, that is, on texts providing dynamic patterns of thought for readers to act out. A focus on literature as mental work can provide students with a theoretical outlook and analytical toolbox while at the same time preserving a central role for their individual reading experiences.