NEWS Author Anders Pettersson, an Emeritus Professor of Swedish and Comparative Literature at Umeå University, presents an approach to literature that stresses literature's relevance to readers' lives.
Anders Pettersson, Professor Emeritus of Swedish and Comparative Literature, has published a new monograph, The Concept of Literary Application: Readers' Analogies from Text to Life (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
The book is a literary theoretical work about how readers connect the literary text with the surrounding reality and the role that such an application of the literary text plays and should play in the literary experience.
Read more at www.palgrave.com (Palgrave Macmillan)
"In this lucid and insightful book, Anders Pettersson argues that using fiction to understand life ('application') is a deeply important part of literary experience. He goes on to provide a thought-provoking explanation of why and how this is the case. This nuanced theoretical work - one of the best I have read in years - will be of great interest to anyone who cares about the value of literature." - Professor Patrick Hogan, University of Connecticut, USA
"Engaging with an exceptionally wide range of positions in literary theory, philosophical aesthetics, and psychology, Anders Pettersson presents an approach to literature that stresses literature's relevance to readers' lives. His informative views on major issues in literary theory merit the attention of anyone who cares about literature." - Paisley Livingston, Chair Professor and Head of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Editor: David Meyers