Can autobiographical works generate empathy in their readers? The high-impact Asian journal Concentric has devoted its autumn-winter issue to this reflection. In it it collects papers framed in the symposium 'Life Writing as Empathy: A Symposium on Narrative Emotions', organized in October 2015 by the project 'Emotional culture and identity' of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) and funded by Zurich Insurance.

The publication includes nine articles by researchers from various disciplines, focusing on the study of empathy in biographical works, such as memoirs, diaries, letters, biographies, films and documentaries. Rocio G. Davis, collaborator of project of the ICS, has been in charge of the edition and foreword of the volume. In it she reflects on how the reader may be more reluctant to empathize when challenged to "feel with and act with or for the writer".

Topics such as genres, reader acceptance and empathy , the aesthetics of empathy, teaching of empathy through biographical literature, visualization of empathic processes, report and theory of mind are addressed, empathy and social identities (ethnicity, disability, gender, age, and social class ), report and empathy, the ethics of empathy, the rhetoric of empathy, representations of emotions related to empathy, and actional and aesthetic empathy, among others.

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies is published biannually by department of English, National Taiwan University. The Integrated Classification of Scientific Journals (CIRC) lists it in the first quartile in the 'Human Sciences' category. It seeks to offer innovative perspectives on literature and cultural issues and to advance the exchange of ideas across cultures.

Articles and authors

- Foreword: 'Empathy and Life Writing', Rocío G. Davis.

-'Life Writing and the Empathetic Circle', Suzanne Keen.

- The Uses of Empathy in Literary Theory and Hermeneutics: A Systems-Theoretical Approach', Luis Galván.

- 'The Circulation of Grief in English Women's WWII Correspondence', Stephanie Butler.

- 'No Pity: Disability Memoirs and Narrative Empathy in Robert Murphy's The Body Silent and Reynolds Price's A Whole New Life', Rosalia Baena.

- 'Empathizing with the Rights of Others: Reading Jamaica Kincaid's My Brother and Edwidge Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying as Humanitarian Narratives', Lourdes López-Ropero.

- 'Narrative Empathy at the Interface of Auto/Biography and Film: Frida by Hayden Herrera (1983) and Julie Taymor (2002)', Sabrina Vellucci.

- 'How Is Empathy Evoked in Interactive Multimodal Life Stories?', Evelyn Chew and Alex Mitchell.

- 'Knowing Other People's Stories: Empathy, Illness, and Identity', Arthur W. Frank.