Hi! (Please ignore my question if it doesn't make sense) I saw in your bio that, in addition to being a Jane Austen fan, you are a cognitive neuroscientist. Do you have thoughts on any of her six major novels from a cognitive neuroscience perspective?
I have basically one thought: Louisa's fall in Lyme and the after-effects of her major traumatic brain injury are very realistic. Her symptoms, the recovery time, and the after effects are all textbook. Good work Jane Austen!
Otherwise, there isn't much neuroscience in Jane Austen's works. There may be some psychology, and I did learn quite a bit about abnormal psychology, but the very first thing we learned is that no one can be diagnosed with anything without a proper clinical interview and diagnostic tools. Not 200 year old book characters, not even a major political figure. Which is why I pretty much refuse to "diagnose" anyone with anything.
What my education does give me is a very data driven approach to the world. Jane Austen can be tricky because of free-indirect discourse and a very sarcastic narrator, but if you can support something with quotations, I'll accept it. For example, many people deny that Darcy wanted Georgiana to marry Bingley, despite there being an actual quote in the book that says that. I looked at the quote, I looked at all the surrounding evidence, I checked for sarcasm (the narrator mocks Darcy for thinking he could be unbiased, that's the sarcastic part), and then I concluded that it was supported by the text. To me, any other conclusion would be nothing but bias (the bias here being that the Bingleys are so trade-scummy that Darcy would never consider marriage to that family).
