Do literary and movie characters have a mind? Our cognitive capacities to attribute minds to others –that is attributing thoughts, desires and feelings to others that may be the same or different from our own states of mind - usually come into play with regard to fictional characters as well. However, this capacity develops during our first years of life. What, if so, happens during its development? Do toddlers and young children attribute minds to fictional characters? Is their attribution of minds to others different from the way adults attribute minds? Could that affect children's books and movies? How? Could literary works affect our development and our social skills? And when we grow up, how do we understand literary characters? What makes us attribute minds to gods, monsters, ghosts, zombies, superheroes, aliens and androids? What is the cognitive machinery that allows us to do so? Does it have limits? What are those limits? Does exceeding those limits make these creatures even more mythical? During this course we will deal with these questions and others drawing on the most recent cognitive findings and on examples from some fine works of literature and film.