Distributed Cognition in Enlightenment and Romantic Culture

An innovative, thought-provoking approach to eighteenth-century culture. By applying new notions of the human mind as extended across brain, body, and environment, contributors open up refreshing perspectives on the most significant issues in Enlightenment and Romantic Studies. * Avi S. Lifschitz, Magdalen College, University of Oxford *
A relatively recent, but pronounced, paradigm shift in cognitive science sees cognition as distributed across brain, body and world. This latest offering from the series, The Edinburgh History of Distributed Cognition, is a groundbreaking investigation of the implications of this distributed conception of cognition for our understanding of literature in the Enlightenment and Romantic periods. Anderson, Rousseau and Wheeler have assembled a set of consistently excellent contributions. The result is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of cognition and also provides a dramatically original way of reading works of the Enlightenment and Romantic periods. * Mark Rowlands, University of Miami *