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Novels as "Empathy Machines" in the Age of AI: Richard Powers's Bewilderment.

This article offers a close reading of Richard Powers's 2021 novel Bewilderment , tracing the ways that machine-enabled Decoded-Neurofeedback ("DecNef") functions in the novel as a science fictional exaggeration of the power of reading fiction. By implication, Powers's dramatization of the DecNef's...

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Published in:CEA Critic Vol. 88; no. 1; pp. 71 - 86
Main Author: Hediger, Ryan
Format: Article
Published: Johns Hopkins University Press Mar2026
Subjects:
Intersubjectivity
Flow theory (Psychology)
Affective computing
Authors
Biofeedback training
Curiosity
Fiction writing
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost