Enacting Embodied Events in Narrative Processing

Abstract

In this paper, I would like to discuss the status of a particular subclass of events in cognitive narratology: embodied events connected with bodily movements of fictional characters. I will refer to some possible interconnections between current issues in the study of social cognition and the latest debates in narrative studies. I will address opportunities for developing an enactive approach to processing narrative events, with particular reference to the corporeal motion and the concept of bodily simulation. Such an approach could help account for the representation and tracking of events by readers engaged in the embodied experience of reading. I find new approaches to cognition highly inspiring for future research on the intersubjective nature of narrative and for the further development of empirical studies on reader responses to literature.