The Reader, the Text and the Brian: Exploring Neuroaesthetic Markers in Readers’ Reaction to Grace Nichols’ “What can be Done”

This study titled “The Reader, the Text and the Brian: Exploring Neuroaesthetic Markers in Readers’ Reaction to Grace Nichols’ “What can be Done” establishes that the human mind can be understood by aggregating scientific objectivity and literary models of signification. Deploying Neuroaesthetics to literary phenomenon reignites discussions on the aesthetic hermeneutics which is fundamental not only to literary scholarship but also to the epistemic space. This is even so as Neuroaesthetics has developed models that will enhance the interface between language, literature, and the Biological and Medical sciences which has offered new possibilities for interdisciplinary engagement. The study uses the markers of Neuroaesthetics and poetics of Reader-Response Theory to interpret the reader’s reaction to literary text. This is done to demonstrate that literary discourse and the effort to understand the human mind can be epitomized by adopting an interdisciplinary approach that is both scientific in method and literary in approach. It does this by applying the quantitative method to determine the size of respondents in learning situations and to capture manageable data that enable the analytical contexts. This is done to demonstrate that the reception of a text can offer a template for measuring how psychic markers, within the context of Neuroaesthetics, shape textual perception.