205 MINTEA UMANĂ RADIOGRAFIATĂ PRIN LECTURĂ Gabriela TUCAN Universitatea de Vest din Timișoara gabriela.tucan@e-uvt.ro The Human Mind Mapped through Literary Readings DOI: 10.35923/AUTFil.59.15 Since the 1990s, with the rise of cognitive sciences, there has been a theoreti- cal turn in humanities, with radical consequences for literary studies. They are regarded as vehicles for our everyday conceptual capacities and as products of the human mind, grounded in general cognitive abilities and firmly anchored in the minute architecture of bodies and brains. This major claim changed the na- ture of how literature is understood, while literary critics have developed new tools to understand the complexities of literary language and cognition. This paper will focus on the newly emergent study of literature with a cognitive lens. More specifically, with the tools and advances of cognitive poetics and narratology to literary reading, it seeks to explain the cognitive mechanisms that become evident in readings. This type of research shows how reading lit- erature offers benefits back to cognitive science and promises to reveal much about how our brain functions. Keywords: literary reading; cognitive poetics; cognitive narratology; mental representation De-a lungul timpului, literatura a fost considerată un caz mult prea parti- cular pentru a ne transmite ceva relevant despre funcţionarea minţii umane, aşa încât odată cu dezvoltarea în secolul al XX-lea a ştiinţelor cognitive, direct preocupate cu mecanismele minții, acestea nu i-au acordat suficientă atenţie. Desigur afirmația de început ar putea părea mult prea generalizatoare sau intransigentă, însă rolul ei nu este doar retoric, cum s-ar putea înțelege, ci caută să facă mai multă lumină, printr-o exagerare asumată critic, asupra