The Cognitive Literary Theory of Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2

Abstract

By detailing the efforts of a cognitive scientist and a writer to develop a connectionist computer capable of reading and commenting on literature, Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2 develops a sophisticated cognitive literary theory. At the same time, it represents postmodernist or poststructuralist theory in dismissive yet evasive terms. Thus the novel takes a double stance: while the novel's cognitive theory undercuts the poststructuralist model of language, it affirms or parallels some poststructuralist views of truth, meaning, and human nature.