3 credits
Fall 2025 Lecture Lower Division
This course introduces students to the main developments in the neurohumanities particularly since the 1990s, with focus on cognitive literary and cultural studies. The course emphasizes not only the role of psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and other STEM and social scientific fields in interpreting cultural artifacts, but also how literary and cultural studies contribute significantly to those fields. Students will learn skills which will enable them to consider and interpret works of art, broadly defined, through a highly interdisciplinary cognitive-studies lens as they explore how the humanities are intricately intertwined with the sciences.
Learning Outcomes1Identify the main focal points of cognitive literary and cultural studies and trace their developments over the past four decades.
2Analyze the reciprocal influence of humanistic cognitive studies and scientific fields.
3Explain the primary debates within and surrounding cognitive studies in the humanities.
4Implement one or more approaches from cognitive studies to analyze a literary work, film, or other cultural artifact.
made by Purdue students.