Friday, March 25, 2011
I Have a Gut Feeling About this Research's Importance to Literary Studies
It turns out that there is a direct connection between the bacteria in your intestines and learning, memory, and behavior. In other words, to know something in your guts may be more than a mere metaphor. This research suggests that what bacteria are present in your guts affect your psychiatric state. This suggests that some interesting work could be done looking at the way authors represent characters' psychological states and their physical conditions. How many characters have "stomach problems" that affect them and their mental states? Might the linked research lead to our understanding the relation between some specific bacterial cocktails and their psychological affects on their hosts? If so, may we not see this in works of literature?
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This popped up at CoS today, and I thought you all might know some early career colleagues who would be interested.
ReplyDeleteAwards to Early Career Scholars to Participate in the Workshop "Naturalistic Approaches to Culture?"
Free flight, room, board for a 3-day workshop in Hungary. I won't have my PhD in hand until January, or I would definitely apply myself.
Great. Thanks for sharing.
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