Centuries ago, Aristotle fashioned a term that brought literature and psychology face to face: catharsis (psychological or mental purification of the feelings). From that time onwards, literature and human psyche have been correlated either by various writers, philosophers, critics, or by means of several techniques or movements. Not only was it tragedy that combined the elements of psychology with literary production, it was also novel, poetry, short story and even some psychoanalytical theories that brought psyche and literature together. There has always been a mutual partnership of the two: psychology of men and literature of men. It was Sigmund Freud, for instance, who introduced Oedipus complex from what Sophocles held as the plot of Oedipus the King. It was Samuel Richardson who carried the earlier features of sentimental novel and the early flashes of psychological novel through his Pamela. It was Henry James who borrowed the stream of consciousness technique from psychology and introduced it to be used in literature, and then was subtly employed by James Joyce in Ulysses and by Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway. Charles Dickens, with his famous industrial novel Great Expectations, reflected the well-established norms of psychological realism. George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion was named after the mythological figure of Greek Pygmalion, and the name was also adapted into the Pygmalion effect to emphasize the observable phenomena related to the psychology and performance of men. Similarly, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita became a focal work that impacted the birth of Lolita complex. Friedrich Nietzsche’subermensch (just as it is employed by Bernard Shaw in Superman), MartinEsslin’s theatre of the absurd (employed by Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot), Antonin Artaud’s theatre of cruelty (employed by Edward Bond in Saved) and etc. all could be tackled in terms of interrelation of human psyche and literariness.
Psychology has also some observable impacts on the writer’s writing skill. Causing extreme changes in mood, bipolar disorder is addressed by many critics to be the central origin behind creativity. Such writers and critics as John Ruskin, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Alan Garner, Hams Christian Anderson and Sherman Alexei among others are known to have bipolar disorder that impacted their literary creativity. Feminist urges also produced the female creativity within some genres of literature. It was Emily Dickenson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and Bronte Sisters that embraced the psychology of the power of female creativity on the way to writing. For that reason, psychology and literature live in each other’s pockets.
This proposal suggests a forum of differing ideas on the link between literature and psychology, psychology of writing, traumatic literature, the construction of the Self within literature, the psychology of characterization, psychoanalytical approaches, and the psychology of literary creativity.
The topics of interest include but not limited to the following titles:
Psychology of Literature
Literature of Psychology
Psychology and literary genres
Psychological theories and movements
Traumatic literature
Literature and psyche
Auto/biography and psyche
Psychoanalytical approaches
The psychology of Self and Literature
The Psychology of Writing
Trauma and Writing
The Self and Writing
Psychology and Creativity
Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before March
31, 2017, a chapter proposal of 1,000 to 2,000 words clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors will be notified by
April 30, 2017 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by
October 30, 2017, and all interested authors must consult the guidelines for manuscript submissions at
http://www.cambridgescholars.com/t/AuthorFormsGuidelines prior to submission. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.
Note: There are no submission or acceptance fees for manuscripts submitted to this book publication, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. All manuscripts are accepted based on a double-blind peer review editorial process.
Publisher
This book is scheduled to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit
http://www.cambridgescholars.com/. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2018.
Important Dates
March 31, 2017: Proposal Submission Deadline
April 30, 2017: Notification of Acceptance
October 30, 2017: Full Chapter Submission
December 30, 2017: Review Results Returned
January 30, 2018: Final Acceptance Notification
February 15, 2018: Final Chapter Submission
April 15, 2018:Manuscript delivery date
Two upcoming events at the UCL Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines:
