98: Cognitive Semantics & Conceptual Metaphor

98: Cognitive Semantics & Conceptual Metaphor

What does it actually mean to say that language is embodied? How do human beings transform physical experience into abstract thought, metaphor, and meaning? This episode of Literary Rides explores the intellectual foundations of Cognitive Semantics and Conceptual Metaphor Theory, tracing how scholars in cognitive linguistics challenged the older belief that language operates as a purely formal and autonomous system. Beginning with the emergence of embodied cognition, the discussion examines how recurring bodily experiences generate image schemas such as CONTAINER, PATH, BALANCE, FORCE, and CENTRE–PERIPHERY. These schemas become the conceptual architecture through which humans interpret emotions, politics, morality, time, identity, and social relations. The episode further investigates George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s revolutionary argument that metaphor is not merely poetic ornamentation but a fundamental mechanism of human thought itself. The conversation then moves toward conceptual blending theory, showing how the mind combines multiple cognitive spaces to generate creativity, narrative, humour, and symbolic meaning. Alongside these developments, the episode also explores attempts to formalise cognitive semantics through mathematical logic and computational modelling, revealing the ongoing dialogue between embodied cognition and formal semantics. The episode finally considers contemporary applications of cognitive semantics in pedagogy, discourse analysis, psychotherapy, media studies, AI language systems, and literary interpretation. Throughout, the discussion demonstrates how human cognition continuously transforms lived bodily experience into complex symbolic structures that shape both language and culture. Ideal for students and researchers of linguistics, literary theory, semiotics, communication studies, philosophy of language, cognitive science, and UGC NET English preparation.

97: Genre Theory: What Makes a Genre?

Why do we instinctively classify stories, films, music, and artistic experiences into genres? What makes a horror film feel like horror, or a detective novel immediately recognisable as crime fiction? And why do genres constantly evolve, fracture, and reinvent themselves? In this episode of Literary Rides, we explore Genre Theory as a powerful framework for understanding literature, cinema, music, and popular culture. Moving from Aristotle’s early classifications to Franco Fabbri’s theory of musical genres, from film genre theory to Derrida’s philosophical critique of genre boundaries, this conversation examines how genres shape both artistic production and audience expectation. The episode discusses narrative conventions, audience psychology, genre hybridity, postmodern experimentation, and the role of digital platforms in reshaping cultural categories. Along the way, we explore thinkers such as Tzvetan Todorov, Rick Altman, Steve Neale, Northrop Frye, John Frow, and Jacques Derrida. Far from being rigid labels, genres emerge here as dynamic cultural systems constantly transformed by technology, ideology, commerce, and creative experimentation. This episode will be especially valuable for students of literary theory, film studies, cultural studies, media studies, and UGC NET English preparation. Genre theory ultimately asks a profound question: how do societies organise imagination itself?

96: Edgar Allan Poe: Gothic Imagination

What happens when horror stops being about monsters outside us and begins revealing the darkness within the human mind itself? In this episode of Literary Rides, we explore the haunting literary universe of Edgar Allan Poe, the writer who transformed Gothic fiction into a profound psychological art form. Moving through the shadowy landscapes of Dark Romanticism, the episode examines how Poe shifted literary terror away from castles and ghosts toward obsession, paranoia, guilt, madness, and fractured consciousness. The discussion investigates Poe’s influential theory of the “unity of effect,” his mastery of unreliable narration, and his creation of claustrophobic psychological worlds in works such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat, The Raven, and The Cask of Amontillado. The episode also traces Poe’s enduring influence on detective fiction, psychological thrillers, Gothic cinema, and modern horror traditions. From symbolic architecture and decaying aristocratic spaces to the unstable narrator and the aesthetics of psychological collapse, Poe’s literary imagination continues to shape contemporary storytelling across literature and film. This episode is especially valuable for students of Gothic literature, literary theory, Dark Romanticism, and UGC NET English preparation, while also offering deeper insight into why Poe remains one of the most unsettling and intellectually compelling figures in world literature.

95: Language and Memory: How the Brain Stores Words

How does the human brain continuously learn new words, experiences, and ideas without destroying older memories? Why can language remain stable even while vocabulary and knowledge constantly expand? This episode of Literary Rides explores one of the most fascinating discoveries in cognitive science and psycholinguistics: the brain’s use of two complementary learning systems — the hippocampus and the neocortex. Drawing from neuroscience, connectionist theory, and language research, the discussion examines how rapid memory formation and slow conceptual integration work together to create stable human cognition. The episode explains memory consolidation, semantic networks, catastrophic interference, and the gradual formation of linguistic knowledge. It also investigates how these ideas reshape our understanding of learning, revision, language acquisition, and even literary interpretation. Moving between neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and education, this conversation reveals that memory is not simply storage — it is the dynamic architecture through which humans construct meaning, identity, and intellectual continuity. Ideal for: UGC NET English studentsLinguistics and psycholinguistics learnersCognitive science enthusiastsResearchers of language and memoryTeachers and lifelong learners

94: Cultural Materialism: Literature & Power

What if literature is not timeless art floating above society, but a battlefield shaped by power, ideology, and material reality? This episode of Literary Rides explores Cultural Materialism, one of the most politically charged approaches in modern literary theory. Drawing upon the ideas of Raymond Williams, Alan Sinfield, and Jonathan Dollimore, the discussion examines how literature becomes entangled with capitalism, class hierarchy, patriarchy, education systems, and ideological control. The episode investigates how cultural materialists reinterpret Shakespeare, challenge the notion of “universal” literary greatness, and expose the mechanisms through which institutions shape cultural authority. Key concepts such as ideology, canon formation, dissident reading, and the famous tension between subversion and containment are explained through clear and historically grounded analysis. The conversation also compares Cultural Materialism with New Historicism while exploring contemporary questions surrounding syllabus politics, media industries, representation, and the commodification of culture in the digital age. Designed for UGC NET English students, postgraduate researchers, teachers, and serious readers of literary theory, this episode offers both conceptual clarity and critical depth.