Valerio Amoretti, Sowon Park

Literature and Mind Reading List

(Organized thematically, with readings arranged chronologically within each section)

I. Foundational Texts

The writings of Darwin, James, Freud and Merleau-Ponty mark formative developments in four distinct yet intersecting traditions in the study of mind: neurobiology, psychology, psychoanalysis, and philosophy. A firm grounding in these works provides a solid historical and conceptual framework for contemporary interdisciplinary inquiry into literature and mind.

1. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859). Especially Introduction; Ch. 3, “Struggle for Existence”; Ch. 4, “Natural Selection”; The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). Especially Chs. 1–3, “General Principles of Expression.”
2. William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Especially Ch. 9, “The Stream of Thought”; Ch. 10, “The Consciousness of Self”; Ch. 19, “The Perception of Things.”
3. Sigmund Freud, Studies on Hysteria (1895). Especially “Preliminary Communication”; On Dreams (1901); “On Narcissism” (1914); “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917); The Ego and the Id (1923); from The New Introductory Lectures (1933): “Revision of the Theory of Dreams.”
4. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (1945). Especially Introduction and Part II, “The World as Perceived.”

II. Psychoanalysis

These works introduce major psychoanalytic accounts of the unconscious, attachment, object relations, symbolic development, and the formation of subjectivity.

5. Melanie Klein, “Mourning and Its Relation to Manic-Depressive States” (1940); “Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms” (1946).
6. Marion Milner, On Not Being Able to Paint (1950). Especially Part I: The Emergence of the Free Drawings.
7. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952).
8. D. W. Winnicott, “Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena: A Study of the First Not-Me Possession” (1953); “The Location of Cultural Experience” (1966).
9. W. R. Bion, Learning from Experience (1962); “A Theory of Thinking” (1962)
10. Jacques Lacan, Écrits (1966; English translation 2006). Especially “The Mirror Stage.”
11. John Bowlby, Attachment (1969). Especially Ch. 12, “The Nature and Function of Attachment Behaviour.”

III. Neuroscience

These works introduce fundamental developments in neuroscience, including neural organization, perception, emotion, memory, selfhood, and reading. The two Daedalus collections offer accessible accounts of major research areas while situating contemporary neuroscience within broader intellectual traditions.

12. Vernon B. Mountcastle, “Brain Science at the Century’s Ebb.” The Brain, special issue of Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998).
13. Joseph E LeDoux, Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are (2002).
14. Stanislas Dehaene, Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention (2009).
15. Thomas Albright, “Perceiving”; Joseph E. LeDoux, “Feelings: What Are They & How Does the Brain Make Them?”; Larry R. Squire and John T. Wixted, “Remembering.” What Is the Brain Good For?” special issue of Daedalus (2015).

IV. Consciousness

These readings examine consciousness, subjective experience, and the construction of selfhood.

16. Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” (1974).
17. David Lodge, “Consciousness and the Novel” (2002).
18. Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (2009).
19. Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain (2010).
20. Mark Solms, The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness (2021).

V. Phenomenology, Embodiment, and 4E Cognition

These works trace the development of phenomenological and embodied approaches to cognition, challenging accounts of the mind as an isolated information-processing system. The 4E framework—embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended—offers complementary perspectives on the relationships among brain, body, environment, and experience.

21. Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (1991; revised edition 2016).
22. Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild (1995).
23. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (1999).
24. Alva Noë, Action in Perception (2004).
25. Shaun Gallagher, How the Body Shapes the Mind (2005).
26. Andy Clark, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension (2008).
27. Giovanna Colombetti, The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind (2014).

VI. Aesthetics and Imagination

These works examine the relationships among aesthetic form, emotion, imagination, and cognition.

28. Susanne K. Langer, Feeling and Form (1953). Especially Part I and Part II, Chs. 13–19.
29. Martha C. Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (1990). Especially Introduction, “Form and Content, Philosophy and Literature.”
30. Elaine Scarry, Dreaming by the Book (1999). Especially “On Vivacity” and “On Solidity.”
31. John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, “Does Beauty Build Adapted Minds? Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Aesthetics, Fiction and the Arts” SubStance (2001).
32. Jean Pierre Changeux, The Good, the True, and the Beautiful: A Neuronal Approach (2012).

VII. Social and Narrative Cognition

These works examine how minds understand other minds and how narrative shapes the representation and interpretation of human experience.

33. Michael S. Gazzaniga, The Social Brain: Discovering the Networks of the Mind (1985).
34. Suzanne Keen, Empathy and the Novel (2007).
35. David Herman, Storytelling and the Sciences of Mind (2013).

Last Revised: October 2026