An overwhelmed freshman tells me that she feels that she ought not to dump her emotions on others, and I realize for the first time, with shock, what view of human interiority this metaphor implies. This is what Laura Otiss powerful new book does to you. It stops you in your tracks, making you aware of how metaphors that we casually use to describe various unloved emotions, shape our self-perception, daily interactions, the novels that we read and the movies that we
watch. It takes a scholar of Otiss brilliance and wide-ranging interdisciplinary expertise to bring together cognitive science and literary and film criticism in ways that can change how we think and live.
Laura Otis is a Professor of English at Emory University. With an MA in Neuroscience, a PhD in Comparative Literature, and an MFA in Fiction, she compares the creative thinking of scientists and literary writers. Otis, a MacArthur Fellow, is the author of Organic Memory, Membranes, Networking, Müller's Lab, and Rethinking Thought.