Beckett and the Cognitive Method

Mind, Models, and Exploratory Narratives

Marco Bernini

Cognition and Poetics

Constructs a new theoretical framework for Samuel Beckett's work, reconceived as a form of exploration and modeling of cognition that parallels cognitive research
Analyzes Beckett's corpus and published letters in light of contemporary cognitive science, phenomenology, and narrative theory
Develops a series of novel terms and concepts for Beckett's cognitive methodology to inform new directions of research in cognitive literary studies, narrative theory, modernist studies, Beckett studies, and medical humanities

Beckett and the Cognitive Method

Mind, Models, and Exploratory Narratives

Marco Bernini

Description

Does literature merely represent cognitive processes, or can it enhance, parallel, or reassess the scientific study of the mind? Beckett and the Cognitive Method argues that Samuel Beckett's narrative work, rather than just expressing or rendering mental states, inaugurates an exploratory use of narrative as an introspective modeling technology. Through a detailed analysis of Beckett's entire corpus and published volumes of letters, this book argues that Beckett pioneered a new method of writing to construct (in a mode analogous to scientific inquiry) models for the exploration of core laws, processes, and dynamics in the human mind.

Marco Bernini integrates frameworks from contemporary narrative theory, cognitive sciences, phenomenology, and philosophy of mind to make a case for Beckett's modeling practice. Bernini demonstrates how this modeling applies to a vast array of processes including the (narrative) illusion of a sense of self, the dialogic interaction with memories and felt presences, the synesthetic nature of inner experience and mental imagery, the role of moods and emotions as cognitive drives, and the emergent quality of consciousness. Beckett and the Cognitive Method also reflects on how Beckett's fictional cognitive models are transformed into reading, auditory, or spectatorial experiences generating through narrative devices insights on what the sciences can only discursively report. As such, Bernini argues that literature should be considered a proper exploration of the mind, with its own tools and models for cognitive inquiry.

Beckett and the Cognitive Method

Mind, Models, and Exploratory Narratives

Marco Bernini

Cognition and Poetics

Preface
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Modeling the Apparent Self
1.1. Awakening in the Bioscope: Wertheimers Law, Predictive Self, and Chronotopic Groundlessness
1.2. A Torrent of Meiosis: Fissions, Relations, and the Pearl View Explored
1.3. Introspection by Simulation: Inner Third-Person, Polyphony, and Centerless Storyworlds
1.4. Toward the Seed of Motion: Close and Beyond the Center of Narrative Gravity

Chapter 2: A Brain Listening to Itself
2.1. Tracing a Phenomenological Continuum: From the Clinical to the Fictional
2.2. Theorizing a Modeling Continuum: From AVHs to Inner Speech
2.3. Detuning a Fundamental Sound: Mediacy, Co-Modeling, and the Narrated Self
2.4. The Dialogic Cloud: On Memory and Co-Presence

Chapter 3: Synesthetic Innerscapes
3.1. Landscapes of Consciousness as Landscapes of Action: QuasiPerceptual Minds and the Basics of Innerscapes
3.2. Sculpting Latencies: Introspective Affordances, Narrativity, and Personal Geographies
3.3. Windows of Presence: Inner Ecologies and Dreamlike Worlds
3.4. In the Night That Tells No Tales: Synesthesia, Narrative, Table Lamps, and Magic Lanterns

Chapter 4: Cognitive Liminalism
4.1. The Principle of Liminality: Limens and Limes across Domains
4.2. Toward Cognitive Liminalism: Impeded Logomotion and Deflated Narrative Gravity
4.3. Residual Teleodynamics and Maximal Prediction Errors: Emotions, Absential Features, and Cognitive Impenetrability
4.4. Cognitive Conceptual Personae: Enacting Sense-Making without Making Sense

Chapter 5: Emergence and Complexity
5.1. Against the Aboutness of Complexity: From Narrative Chaotics to Blueprints for Emergence
5.2. Neural and Mental Complexity: A Matter of Levels
5.3. The Dynamic Core of the Onion: Patterns, Nodes, Signals, and Boundaries

Conclusion: Toward a Phenomenogeology of Consciousness and the Co-Modeling of Cognition

References
Becketts Works Cited
Index

Beckett and the Cognitive Method

Mind, Models, and Exploratory Narratives

Marco Bernini

Cognition and Poetics

Author Information

Marco Bernini, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Literary Studies, Durham University

Marco Bernini is Assistant Professor of Cognitive Literary Studies at Durham University. He specializes in narrative theory, modernism, and cognitive approaches to literature.

Beckett and the Cognitive Method

Mind, Models, and Exploratory Narratives

Marco Bernini

Cognition and Poetics

Reviews and Awards

"Beckett is presumed to have hated philosophy but his plays tell us otherwise. He disliked academic pomp, but plumbed ideas to the depth. If you appreciate Beckett's theater you may want to use this well-researched book to go backstage and consider the thinking behind the words." - Antonio Damasio, Professor, David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience, and Director of Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California

"In this meticulously researched book, Marco Bernini addresses the most perplexing aspects of Beckett's writing: his representation of altered states of consciousness, of voice hearing, and of varieties of introspection beyond everyday phenomenological levels of awareness. Through an intricate interweaving of narrative and cognitive theory, paired with arresting close readings, Beckett and the Cognitive Method advances a strikingly new argument that will transform our understanding of Beckett's work." - Ulrika Maude, Professor of Modern Literature, University of Bristol

"The word 'landmark' is overused, but I believe it applies to this book. It reflects the author's sparkling intelligence and, at the same time, the book's deep research in philosophy, psychology, the cognitive sciences, narratology, literary criticism, and still other disciplines. Marco Bernini makes a genuine contribution that more than fulfills the promise of a genuine literary-scientific cross-pollinization in narratological and literary discourse." - Porter Abbott, Research Professor Emeritus of English, University of California, Santa Barbara