Psyche and the Literary Muses focuses on the psychology of literature from an empirical point of view, rather than the more typical psychoanalytic position, and concentrates on literary content rather than readers or writers. The book centers on the author’s quantitative studies of brief literary and quasi-literary forms, ranging from titles of short stories and names of literary characters to clichés and quotations from literary sources, in demonstrating their contribution to the topics of learning, perception, thinking, emotions, creativity, and especially person perception and aging. More broadly, Psyche bears on literary studies, art, and psychology in general, as well as interdisciplinarity. This book deepens the understanding and appreciation of literature for scholars, academics and the general reader.

This book relates literature to the institution of the university, to ethical judgements and values, new media and computer technology, and the nature of representative democracy.

The Vernacular Muse tackles head-on conservative Canadian critical theory and practice. Personal and provocative, Cooley's lucid essays in The Vernacular Muse range from the ­vernacular in Prairie poetry, thepoetics of the line break, and the poetry of eye versus ear to substantial readings of texts by Dorothy Livesay, Margaret Laurence, Michael Ondaatje, Sinclair Ross and Robert Duncan. The first collection of critical essays from a central figure in the making and recognition of prairie writing.