Why Does Frank Underwood Look at Us? Contemporary Heroes Suggest the Need of a Turn in the Conceptualization of Fictional Empathy (pre-print version) (original) (raw)
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Journal of Literay Theory (De Gruyter), 2018
Fictional heroes have long attracted the attention and emotions of their audiences and readers. Moreover, such sustained attention or emotional involvement has often taken the form of identification, even empathy. This essay suggests that since 9/11, however, a new cycle of heroism has emerged that has taken its place, namely the hybrid hero (cf. Van Tourhout 2017; 2018). Hybrid heroes have become increasingly popular during the post 9/11 period, offering escapism and reassurance to audiences in difficult times in which clear-cut divisions between good and bad, between right and wrong came under pressure. These characters challenge audiences and creators on moral and narrative levels because of their fluid symbiosis of heroic and villainous features. We find some well-known examples in contemporary TV-series such as Breaking Bad, House of Cards, etc. Hybrid heroes are looking for ways to arouse audiences and are aiming at the complicity of the audience. The most striking example of this complicit nature can be seen in the TV-series House of Cards when Frank Underwood addresses the audience by staring into the camera. Traditional psychological and aesthetic theories on empathy are challenged by the phenomenon of the hybrid hero because empathy is generally conceived in prosocial terms, with most of the current research being geared toward a positive notion of empathy (cf. Johnson 2012; Bal/Veltkamp 2013; Koopman/Hakemulder 2015). Additionally, there has been a prevalent confusion between sympathy and empathy that has impacted our understanding of the perception of such heroes (cf. Jolliffe/Farrington 2006). In fact, one of the reasons for the predominantly positive connotation of empathy in the study of literary reception is that empathy has been narrowly defined as »sympathy and concern for unfortunate others«
Writers as double-agents: On fiction and empathy (Literary Hub essay)
In this essay, I argue that empathy and related notions (such as "moral imagination") have come to constitute a dominant discourse in recent debates about the value and purposes of literature, particularly (but not exclusively) in the English-speaking world. The idea that fiction can allow us to exercise the capacity to see the world from different perspectives, and thus help us become more understanding and tolerant, is the main contemporary liberal answer to the question of the relevance of literature today. I consider the arguments of some of the main proponents of this view (Martha Nussbaum, Susan Sontag, Amós Oz and David Foster Wallace) and try indicate some of the limits of their perspective.
On the Phenomenon of Literary Empathy
2021
In this paper, drawing on Husserl, as well as on certain other phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty and Richir, I claim that the phenomenon of the apprehension of the perspectives and emotions of literary characters deserves to be called literary empathy. In order to support this claim, I'll firstly argue that empathy is principally an act of presentification closely related with perception, memory and imagination. Secondly, I'll argue that literary empathy with literary characters is an imaginative reproduction of the reader's bodily sedimentations under the instruction offered by the literary text. Thirdly, I'll argue that through literary empathy, a reader forms a peculiar intersubjective link with the literary character. The subjects in play are thus the real existential "I" and the imagined Other. Asymmetry of existence-positing and lack of interaction do not prevent the imagined characters from exerting an effective influence upon the reader and reconfiguring her actual life.
Empathy and Sympathy: Two Contemporary Models of Character Engagement
The Palgrave handbook of the philosophy of film and motion pictures, 2019
In this paper, I sketch a map of current discussions on character engagement through the concepts of empathy and sympathy and the models of analysis built around them. I will focus on the cognitive tradition, which since the 80’s has offered the most intense and collaborative research on these engagements, their multiple varieties, and their cognitive and ethical importance, but I will also consider some contributions from phenomenology. This map should allow the reader to orientate herself and connect and compare research from different theoretical frameworks. It is not my intention (and it is not possible) to legislate on which terminology should be used, but to facilitate decisions regarding the most promising tools to study this multifaceted phenomenon (or rather this group of interacting phenomena), as I think there is enough common ground to make dialogue possible and fruitful. I do argue, however, that pluralist proposals that give priority to the concept of sympathy have the comparative advantage of offering a framework for analysis that is wide-ranging, clearly articulated and flexible. The “structure of sympathy” model (following Murray Smith’s terminology) allows a comprehensive account of the plurality of phenomena that make up character engagement and facilitates understanding their distinctions and interactions. It also accommodates better the relative importance of symmetrical and asymmetrical engagements with characters.
Fiction as a Means to Understanding the Dynamics of Empathy
Educare - vetenskapliga skrifter
The current study investigated whether the reflective reading of fiction can provide an experiential definition of empathy to supplement more traditional concept analyses. A secondary aim was to look at the rates of absorption (loss of time and space) relative to the rate of reported empathic engagement. Based on earlier studies on reading fiction as an engagement in a social simulation, it was predicted that because fiction is a controlled experience, reading and talking about fiction could provide a forum in which to examine actual experiences of empathy elicitation in relation to an evolving situation. A survey was conducted with 210 student participants over a three-year period. The results show that the empathetic response to narrative is affected in a variety of ways by the presence or absence of an initial sense of affinity and by cognitive input over time, that is, the changing perception of characters and the situations with which they are confronted. Adept readers are more...
Empathy, Fiction and Imagination
Special Issue Topoi, 2019
The concept of empathy has been central to many recent debates in the humanities and neurosciences. Since the discovery of “mirror neurons” in the 1990s (e.g. Rizzolatti et al. 2006), there has been much discussion about the process, the outcome, and the function of empathy. For instance, there is still some controversy over whether empathy – broadly understood as the understanding of mental states (such as emotions, beliefs, and desires) of others – implies a kind of theoretical inference (Theory Theory), imaginative simulation (Simulation Theory), or direct perception (Direct Perception Approach) (for an overview, see Batson 2009; Coplan 2011; Stueber 2017). Whereas cognitivist approaches from the Theory of Mind – such as Theory Theory (Carruthers 1996) and especially Simulation Theory (Goldman 2006) – took prominence for a while, more recently attention has also been given to phenomenological accounts, which take the direct intersubjective encounter and the embeddedness of the self more seriously (Gallagher/Hutto 2008; Gallagher 2012; Zahavi 2001; Zahavi/Overgaard 2012). In drawing on historical phenomenologists like Max Scheler and Edith Stein, as well as current theories of embodiment, such phenomenological approaches to empathy argue that we have an unmediated and experiential access to the mental states, especially emotions, of other persons (Zahavi 2014). According to this view, we see immediately in the expressions of others what they experience. For this to happen, face-to-face and intersubjective interaction is necessary. However, this seems problematic in relation to fictions – such as narrative films or literature – for there is no real encounter, nor are any real persons involved. Rather, imagination and narrative frames seem necessary to become empathetically engaged with fiction and the emotional situations of the characters. This is why some authors, especially from film and literary studies, emphasize the imaginative impact of empathic processes (Carroll 1990; Currie 1995; Gaut 2010; Grodal 1997), or argue for an additional contextual, narrative approach (Gallagher 2012). But in order to better understand the mental states of fictional characters, we must use our capacity of imagination, broadly understood as the ability to represent entities which are not present or do not exist. But is imagining fictional worlds therefore an appropriate or sufficient basis for our experience with various forms of fiction – be it a text or a film? Surely, insofar as there is no real encounter, we have to fill in the gap via our imaginative capacity and comprehend the perspectives of characters by way of a particular form of perspective-taking (Goldie 1999). Of course, the question then arises as to what extent these aspects are interrelated and even compatible: direct perception, narrative comprehension, and imaginative perspective-taking. The issue contains a selection of invited contributions, including: Robert Blanchet, Fritz Breithaupt, Thiemo Breyer, Marco Caracciolo, Jens Eder, Shaun Gallagher, Suzanne Keen, Catrin Misselhorn, Jan Müller, Matthias Schloßberger, Thomas Szanto, Christiana Werner.
One of the primary objections to the ‘simulation model’ of engagement with fiction is that it does not allow for genuine emotional response on the part of readers. In this paper, I argue that empathy, whether with real people or with fictional characters, involves simulation, and that empathy can produce genuine as well as simulated emotions. Empathy is common to our experiences both in friendship and in engagements with fiction, and empathetic experiences are deeply connected in complex ways to some of the strongest emotions that we can have. I develop an account of empathy and argue that it applies to relations both with fictional characters as well as to relations with real people. I then show that though empathy involves imagined beliefs and emotions, it can nonetheless, through ‘spillover’, lead to genuine emotion. Hence, we need not abandon the simulation model out of fear that it will rob us of real emotions.