ArtCogLit
Aachen Research Team Cognitive Literary Studies (ART CogLit)
The newly formed Aachen Research Team Cognitive Literary Studies (ART CogLit) is part of recent developments within English and American Studies at the Institute of English, American and Romance Studies (IfAAR) at RWTH Aachen University, aiming to promote research in the area of cognitive literary studies, which we wish to connect with empirical approaches to literature. Since strengthening this new research focus by appointing Jan Alber as Professor of Cognitive Literary Studies, we would now like to take another step towards pooling and coordinating our research activities (in the fields of cognitive narratology, possible-worlds theory, text-world theory, and reader-response theory) at an international level.
Within the framework of a cognitive perspective on literary reception processes, it will be part of our activities to conduct empirical investigations of the observed reactions of real readers in order to test and extend hypotheses on ideal reading processes and readerly reactions. Thus, we aim at combining qualitative-hermeneutic and empirical approaches to literary studies and intend ARTCogLit to be both inclusive and interdisciplinary. For this reason, we seek to deepen intradepartmental cooperation between researchers in the fields of English literature, linguistics, and foreign language teaching as well as collaborations between the IfAAR and other divisions and departments of RWTH.