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Emotional Bodies: Cognitive Neuroscience and Mediaeval Studies
Author(s) -
Blud Victoria
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/lic3.12266
Subject(s) - psychology , cognitive neuroscience , cognition , neuroscience , cognitive psychology , cognitive science
Surveying the study of mediaeval emotion as a reflex of the interface between neuroscience and the humanities, this essay explores how medico‐philosophical understanding in the late Middle Ages intersects with somatic theories of emotion. The mediaeval emphasis on the faculties and physicality of the soul has the effect of bringing the body to bear on mediaeval representations of profound emotional experiences in a way that might usefully be compared with modern neuroscientific theory; the mediaeval arts and sciences in their turn offer a different take on somatic theory, drawing corporeal, animate and cognitive aspects into one focus.