Fan fiction and early Christian apocrypha

This article applies insights from the study of contemporary fan fiction to the early Christian Jesus tradition, in particular to so-called apocryphal literature. Both fan fiction and the apocrypha are representative of hypertextual literary practices where authors rewrite already existing narrative universes. In modern-day fandom, fan fiction is used for myth maintenance, for social and cultural identification and criticism, and for sharing interpretations of the shared narrative universe within the fan community. The article introduces the reader to fan fiction and fan fiction studies and discusses how these modern phenomena may shed heuristic light on the literary strategies and functions of early Christian apocrypha.     

Women in science fiction

Science fiction has become an important medium of communication for new ideas and values concerning sex roles, and the influx of women into this previously male literary subculture is a change of significance for popular culture. This article uses the first large well-collected body of social science survey data to examine the ideological orientations of women readers and authors. None of the leading women authors write the traditional Hard-Science variety of science fiction that explores innovations in physicial science and technology, and there is a slight tendency for women readers to prefer this type less than men do. Women authors tend to write either Sword-and-Sorcery, a variety of heroic fantasy, or New-Wave science fiction, a politically liberal and stylistically progressive form. Many of the women authors use their fiction as a medium for advocating social change from a feminist perspective. Science fiction has become a forum for women authors' uninhibited public analysis of contemporary sex roles and consideration of options for the future.Thanks to Christine A. Norell for help in producing and distributing the questionnaire, to the University of Washington Department of Sociology for materials, and to the Iguanacon Committee responsible for staging the Thirty-Sixth World Science Fiction Convention.     

文学小说阅读影响社会认知的心理机制

摘要：文学小说阅读可以提高个体社会认知能力,但其中具体心理机制有待探索。本文通过梳理以往研究,从文学小说的社会性和文学性两个视角入手,结合模拟理论,精加工似然模型和叙事传输理论讨论了文学小说阅读影响社会认知的心理机制,并在此基础上初步构建了文学小说影响社会认知的动机-情感-认知加工策略框架。文学小说的社会性会增强读者对故事的情感卷入（叙事传输理论）,并引发读者对故事内容进行心理模拟（模拟理论）;文学小说的文学性同样能够增强读者对故事的情感卷入（叙事传输理论）,同时促使读者在动机层面愿意耗费更多认知资源去理解故事内容（精加工似然模型）,进而促进心理模拟。未来需要更多实证研究来检验这一框架的解释力,完善其边界条件,寻找脑机制层面的证据。     

Optimistic Fiction as a Tool for Ethical Reflection in STEM

Greater emphasis on ethical issues is needed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The fiction for specific purposes (FSP) approach, using optimistic science fiction texts, offers a way to focus on ethical reflection that capitalizes on role models rather than negative examples. This article discusses the benefits of using FSP in STEM education more broadly, and then explains how using optimistic fictions in particular encourages students to think in ethically constructive ways. Using examples of science fiction texts with hopeful perspectives, example discussion questions are given to model how to help keep students focused on the ethical issues in a text. Sample writing prompts to elicit ethical reflection are also provided as models of how to guide students to contemplate and analyze ethical issues that are important in their field of study. The article concludes that the use of optimistic fictions, framed through the lens of professional ethics guidelines and reinforced through ethical reflection, can help students to have beneficial ethical models.

     

阅读改变人生吗?阅读文学小说提升社会认知的争议

阅读文学小说曾经被认为只是大众消遣娱乐的方式,但最近的研究表明,阅读文学小说能够提升个体的社会认知。然而,有些研究并未发现阅读文学小说能够提升社会认知。本文首先批判性地分析支持和质疑“阅读文学小说提升社会认知”的相关证据,随后提出未来的研究将如何解决这一争论,包括开发新的研究工具和技术、明确文学与小说的操作性定义、确定读者的关键特征、创新研究设计等多个方面。     

Literature and Thought Experiments

Like works of literature, thought experiments present fictional narratives that prompt reflection in their readers. Because of these and other similarities, a number of philosophers have argued for a strong analogy between works of literary fiction and thought experiments, some going so far as to say that works of literary fiction are a species of thought experiment. These arguments are often used in defending a cognitivist position with regard to literature: thought experiments produce knowledge, so works of literary fiction can too. This article concedes that works of literary fiction can be put to use in thought experiments, but not in a way that is helpful to the cognitivist. In particular, it draws three disanalogies in the ways we engage critically with thought experiments and with literary fictions. First, we use thought experiments to make arguments; second, we read thought experiments in strongly allegorical terms; and third, the terms of criticism we apply to thought experiments and to works of literature differ. Although these disanalogies present problems for the cognitivist position, they also give us a sharper picture of the distinctive educative potential of works of literary fiction.     

Evolution of the Clonal Man: Inventing Science Unfiction

From carrots to frogs to sheep and finally to humans, the history of cloning is a fascinating study of the interplay between science and popular culture. Imagination and discovery provide mutual impetus in the evolving science and cultural phenomenon of cloning. Its history is a paradigm of science unfiction: What once belonged unequivocally on the pages of science fiction is now emerging in flesh and blood. Writers, movie producers, ethicists, and all manner of social commentators, no less than scientists, have all participated in the creation of the human clone as an idea and as a biological entity. While the clone stands apart as having only one genetic parent, it truly is a brainchild of multifarious origins.     

See me,hear me: Using film in health-care classes

This essay argues that film deserves a place within the medical humanities curriculum and demonstrates effective strategies for employing it within medical ethics and humanities classrooms. Part One of the article emphasizes how and why medical ethics teachers can utilize documentary and fictional films, such as “Thomas Szasz and the Myth of Mental Illness,” “The Deadly Deception,”Whose Life Is It Anyway? and “Voices From the Front” in their courses. Such films encourage students to move beyond abstract debates and confront the human pain inherent in all ethical dilemmas. Part Two focuses on documentary and fiction film in the medical humanities classroom. In this section, the author details how to incorporates films, such asThe Doctor, The Waterdance andHospital, into the humanities classroom, juxtaposing them with various literary works, such asOther Women's Children, Borrowed Time, andCeremony. Part Three of the essay presents a detailed discussion ofThe Elephant Man andFrankenstein, illustrating how visual and literary texts compliment each other within the humanities classroom. Overall, the author demonstrates how films function as engaging and complex visual texts providing unique insights in the particularities of American health care and, as such, can become valuable components within medical ethics and humanities classrooms.     

Archaic man meets a marvellous automaton: posthumanism,social robots,archetypes

Posthumanism is associated with critical explorations of how new technologies are rewriting our understanding of what it means to be human and how they might alter human existence itself. Intersections with analytical psychology vary depending on which technologies are held in focus. Social robotics promises to populate everyday settings with entities that have populated the imagination for millennia. A legend of A Marvellous Automaton appears as early as 350 B.C. in a book of Taoist teachings, and is joined by ancient and medieval legends of manmade humanoids coming to life, as well as the familiar robots of modern science fiction. However, while the robotics industry seems to be realizing an archetypal fantasy, the technology creates new social realities that generate distinctive issues of potential relevance for the theory and practice of analytical psychology.     

Does a single session of reading literary fiction prime enhanced mentalising performance? Four replication experiments of Kidd and Castano (2013)

Prior experiments indicated that reading literary fiction improves mentalising performance relative to reading popular fiction, non-fiction, or not reading. However, the experiments had relatively small sample sizes and hence low statistical power. To address this limitation, the present authors conducted four high-powered replication experiments (combined N?=?1006) testing the causal impact of reading literary fiction on mentalising. Relative to the original research, the present experiments used the same literary texts in the reading manipulation; the same mentalising task; and the same kind of participant samples. Moreover, one experiment was pre-registered as a direct replication. In none of the experiments did reading literary fiction have any effect on mentalising relative to control conditions. The results replicate earlier findings that familiarity with fiction is positively correlated with mentalising. Taken together, the present findings call into question whether a single session of reading fiction leads to immediate improvements in mentalising.     

The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience

ABSTRACT— Fiction literature has largely been ignored by psychology researchers because its only function seems to be entertainment, with no connection to empirical validity. We argue that literary narratives have a more important purpose. They offer models or simulations of the social world via abstraction, simplification, and compression. Narrative fiction also creates a deep and immersive simulative experience of social interactions for readers. This simulation facilitates the communication and understanding of social information and makes it more compelling, achieving a form of learning through experience. Engaging in the simulative experiences of fiction literature can facilitate the understanding of others who are different from ourselves and can augment our capacity for empathy and social inference.     

Aliens among us: a representation of children in science fiction

As a literary genre, science fiction has been largely ignored by psychoanalysis. Science fiction lends itself well to analytic interpretations since its structure embraces an attitude of "cognitive estrangement" (a term that defines the genre). Science fiction allows for the exploration of new and different permutations of seemingly ageless conflicts and concerns. One of the conflicts science fiction seems to address revolves about our fears regarding our children. These children become the "aliens" among us, as they seek to usurp parental power and authority. This issue is addressed through a study of two of Ray Bradbury's short stories. By manipulating the reader's experience of the "uncanny," Bradbury succeeds in tapping what appear to be prevalent and potent fears regarding children and, reflexively, the adults who produce them. Mechanisms involved in this play on "alienness" include projective identification of destructive aspects of the self, a resurgence of archaic superego forerunners constituted around primal scene material, and a reawakening of oedipal struggles.     

CREATORS AND CREATURES: THE CREATION ACCOUNT IN GENESIS AND THE IDEA OF THE ARTIFICIAL HUMANOID

Science fiction, this article argues, provides an imaginative domain which can offer a unique understanding of the interaction between science and religion. Such an interaction is particularly present in the idea of the artificial humanoid as brought to life in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the recent television series Westworld. Both revolve around the theme of a moral relation between scientist creator and humanoid creature in accord with a norm that first took shape in the biblical account of God's creation of the first human beings. At the same time, these works of fiction cast light on the contrast between the biblical account and the Mesopotamian myths of creation. In the manner of Frankenstein and Westworld, science fiction can integrate the perspective of science with that of the biblical tradition.     

Emotion and narrative fiction: Interactive influences before, during, and after reading

Emotions are central to the experience of literary narrative fiction. Affect and mood can influence what book people choose, based partly on whether their goal is to change or maintain their current emotional state. Once having chosen a book, the narrative itself acts to evoke and transform emotions, both directly through the events and characters depicted and through the cueing of emotionally valenced memories. Once evoked by the story, these emotions can in turn influence a person's experience of the narrative. Lastly, emotions experienced during reading may have consequences after closing the covers of a book. This article reviews the current state of empirical research for each of these stages, providing a snapshot of what is known about the interaction between emotions and literary narrative fiction. With this, we can begin to sketch the outlines of what remains to be discovered.     

Emotion and narrative fiction: Interactive influences before,during, and after reading

Emotions are central to the experience of literary narrative fiction. Affect and mood can influence what book people choose, based partly on whether their goal is to change or maintain their current emotional state. Once having chosen a book, the narrative itself acts to evoke and transform emotions, both directly through the events and characters depicted and through the cueing of emotionally valenced memories. Once evoked by the story, these emotions can in turn influence a person's experience of the narrative. Lastly, emotions experienced during reading may have consequences after closing the covers of a book. This article reviews the current state of empirical research for each of these stages, providing a snapshot of what is known about the interaction between emotions and literary narrative fiction. With this, we can begin to sketch the outlines of what remains to be discovered.     

Re‐examining Human Dignity in Literary Texts: In Seeking for a Continuous Dialogue Between the Conceptual and the Empirical Approaches

The article deals with the treatment of human dignity in three novels: The Ballad of Narayama (1956) by Shichiro Fukasawa; Never Let Me Go (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro; and Still Alice (2007) by Lisa Genova. The article argues for a rich understanding of human dignity, an understanding that cannot be reduced to rigid principles. Cultural forms, imagination, and fantasy employed in literary fiction allow us to see this richness.     

Social norms and human cooperation

The existence of social norms is one of the big unsolved problems in social cognitive science. Although no other concept is invoked more frequently in the social sciences, we still know little about how social norms are formed, the forces determining their content, and the cognitive and emotional requirements that enable a species to establish and enforce social norms. In recent years, there has been substantial progress, however, on how cooperation norms are enforced. Here we review evidence showing that sanctions are decisive for norm enforcement, and that they are largely driven by non-selfish motives. Moreover, the explicit study of sanctioning behavior provides instruments for measuring social norms and has also led to deeper insights into the proximate and ultimate forces behind human cooperation.     

REIMAGINING DAOIST ALCHEMY,DECOLONIZING TRANSHUMANISM: THE FANTASY OF IMMORTALITY CULTIVATION IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CHINA

This article studies a new fantasy subgenre that emerged in contemporary China, xiuzhen xiaoshuo (immortality cultivation fiction), which builds imaginary worlds around the magical practice of Chinese alchemy and fuses it with science and technology. After the arrival of the modern, Western triad of science, religion, and magic/superstition, alchemical practices of the Daoist tradition were labeled as a “superstition” to be eradicated; however, they persisted and began to flourish within and beyond the realm of fantasy literature in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Immortality cultivation fiction has generated a magical form of transhumanism, which envisions human enhancement through techniques beyond the boundaries of “proper” science and “legitimate” religion. While transhumanism in the Euro-American West is popular among white bourgeoisie males and dominated by tendencies to reaffirm the human subject constructed by excluding the various subhuman others, magical transhumanism in Chinese fantasy explores the possibility of transcending that antagonistic relationship and making a posthuman subject and a utopian world.     

Age and Individual Differences in Artistic Productivity: Trends Within a Sample of British Novelists

This study drew on biographical and bibliographical documentary material to investigate individual differences in productivity within a large sample of 20th-century British novelists. Length of literary career predicted the output of both fiction and nonfiction work. Judged literary eminence and gender predicted variation in nonfiction output but not fiction output. However, a substantial proportion of the variance in output could not be explained by career length or the other variables included. Age trends in productivity were similar to those predicted by Simonton 's (1984b) information processing model, but there were differences in the trends of the least and most prolific authors. Consideration of biographical information about individual authors revealed lengthy gaps in the literary careers of the least prolific novelists. The results suggest the need to include both intra-individual factors and social support factors in explaining variation in creative productivity.     

Speed-Dating

ABSTRACT— Scholars have recently begun to harness the immense power of speed-dating procedures to achieve important and novel insights into the dynamics of romantic attraction. Speed-dating procedures allow researchers to study romantic dynamics dyadically, with regard to potentially meaningful relationships, and with strong external validity. This article highlights the strengths and promise of speed-dating procedures, reviews some of their most exciting contributions to our understanding of the social psyche, and illustrates how scholars can employ speed-dating and its straightforward variants to study topics relevant to diverse subfields of psychological science.