Fiction Authors Research Articles

Weird Ghosts of the Anthropocene: The Spectral Encounter in New Weird Fiction as a Conceptual Metaphor for Ecocritical Theory

In The Great Derangement, Amitav Ghosh links the reluctance of contemporary fiction to tackle the environmental crisis to the inadequacy of realism, with which Western “high” literature has been associated since the rise of the modern novel, to describe the “hyperobject” quality (Clark 140) of the Anthropocene. This paper argues that the genre labeled as New Weird, which strives to portray the Unheimlich, the eerie, or precisely the weird in our familiar reality, offers an answer to this aesthetic challenge, having found an especially powerful literary device in spectral encounters. In the works of New Weird author China Miéville, environmental concerns are often embodied by the encounter of human protagonists with the ghostly apparitions of non-human entities, from icebergs floating in the sky over London to a sunken oil platform re-emerging from the sea. A close reading of three stories from his collection Three Moments of an Explosion, “Polynia”, “Covehithe” and “Estate”, will show how Miéville’s portrayal of people’s behavior in encountering ‘weird’ spectral presences bear a specific ecological significance. This significance, which is common to many different authors of New Weird fiction, reverberates in the use of spectrality as a conceptual metaphor in contemporary ecocritical theory, thus corroborating the claim of this genre as the most productive for our historical times.

Iḥsān ʿAbd al-Quddūs’ Paths to Freedom Between Journalism and Popular Fiction in the Novel "Anā Ḥurra" (I Am Free)

Iḥsān ʿAbd al-Quddūs (1919-1990) is one of the best-known journalists in the history of Egyptian political journalism. He began his career at Rūz al-Yūsuf magazine, founded by his mother, the celebrated actress and journalist who named the journal after herself. He was also a famed author of popular fiction, which was serialised in Egyptian mainstream weeklies from the late forties through the eighties. His name is associated with mass readership and sentimental novels and short stories whose protagonists often are young women struggling for freedom in a traditional and patriarchal society. In this article we will analyse his first success, the novel Anā Ḥurra (I Am Free), which was written a year after the 1952 Egyptian revolution. The aim of this study is to re-evaluate the underrated field of popular and middlebrow Arabic literature. We will focus on the relation between female liberation and politics in the novel, in particular how the story of the young protagonist’s search for freedom reflects the failures of the 1952 revolution. Keywords: Iḥsān ʿAbd al-Quddūs, Rūz al-Yūsuf, Anā Ḥurra, Journalism, Popular literature, Rebellion, Freedom.

Beyond Black Girlhood

Abstract How can Colson Whitehead’s combining of the generic and the strange in his Pulitzer Prize–winning speculative text The Underground Railroad be read as Afro-Pessimist? This essay seeks to illuminate the ways in which Whitehead’s novel provides narratives of self-making adjacent to coming of age while reinventing the historically white genre of the Bildungsroman for an intersectional identity in early America. Using Geta LeSeur’s The Black Bildungsroman as a point of reference, the author argues that because the protagonist Cora is a Black girl born and raised under chattel slavery and thus forced to come of age before the bulk of the novel, her experience cannot be constrained to a genre defined primarily by Eurocentric traditions and frames of reference. In this way, “girlhood” has never been a possibility for her, making the novel’s ambiguous ending a clearer Afro-Pessimist argument rather than any particular milestone of maturation we see in Bildungsroman. The Underground Railroad is a case study demonstrating how Black speculative fiction authors move through and beyond the Bildungsroman genre by imbuing their Black female subjects like Cora with the agency of self-making, while using speculative elements such as transforming into a railroad to demonstrate the intractable social death of enslavement.

The Strange Career of a Black Utopia Ethiopia, The Land of Promise. A Book with a Purpose, by Charles Henry Holmes (aka Clayton Adams)

This essay presents archival information about Charles H. Holmes and argues that his understudied novel, Ethiopia, The Land of Promise (1917), represents an important chapter in the history of Afrofuturism and American speculative fiction. The literary critical relevance of Ethiopia emerges forcefully from Holmes’s intertextual dialogue with other utopian and science fiction authors, such as Martin R. Delany, Sutton E. Griggs, Pauline E. Hopkins, Frances E.W. Harper, Edward Bellamy, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Holmes’s critique of Jim Crow segregation enables the articulation of a “distinctly revolutionary” project for African American futurity.

Understanding a Future Yet to Take Shape

An issue on narrating shared futures (‘How will we live together?’) implies being able to conceive of a mutual and shared experience. The history of shared heritages often contains other figures in the margins: those who were not seen as part of the dominant cultural narrative, or whose contribution to its heritage went unacknowledged. The holistic view of the 2018 Davos declaration on Baukultur embraces a more integral view of the built environment and society. In order to explore some of the cultural narratives that shape our past and envision a shared future, this article takes a closer look at three science fiction authors and how their stories draw lessons from the past into a narration of possible futures. Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood have each envisioned futures that draw from contemporary developments and expand them to an overarching logic as the setting of their tales. Rather than directly examining (un)built heritages, this article examines the underlying cultural logic of building on the past. If architecture provides a foundation for a shared (and inclusive) future, the stories constructed by these authors show how the built environment resonates with societal principles, aiding or hindering particular collective values.

Phillip K. Dick: A Psychotic Prophet?

The clinical potential of creativity research remains largely unexplored. Philip K. Dick’s deeply personal writings, particularly his journal following a psychotic episode, provide a rare insight into the neuropsychological processes that drive creativity. His unique blend of psychological depth and philosophical science fiction has profoundly impacted literature and popular culture, securing his place as one of the leading science fiction authors of the 20th century. Drawing on his own experiences with mental illness, Dick delved into themes like ontological insecurity, psychosis, dissociation, and drug addiction. Considerable research has explored the connection between madness and creativity. Building on this, the essay will apply clinical nosology to diagnose Dick as a case study, aiming to uncover how his psychopathology influenced his life and creative output. The second part will review recent research on creativity, focusing on factors that enhance our understanding of the roots of his genius. Progressing the neuropsychology of creativity holds significant clinical, social, and economic promise

Cinematic Science Fiction, Indigenous Mythology, and Multispecies Entanglement: An Ecological Reading of The Mermaid (2016)

Abstract In a time of anxiety about environmental annihilation and human extinction, many literary science fiction (sf) authors from the Sinophone area have explored and expressed their ecological concerns through depicting a devastated environment populated by supernatural beings. This article traces a similar trend in cinematic sf by analyzing the 2016 film The Mermaid (Meirenyu 美人鱼), a science-fictional fairy tale written and co-produced by Stephen Chow 周星驰. The choice of merfolk, half-human half-fish creatures employed in the movie, differs, but not completely, from Han Song’s 韩松 portrayal of “aquatic humans” (shuiqiren 水栖人) in his 2004 novel Red Ocean (Hongse haiyang 红色海洋). I believe that the marine humans present in both works, reminiscent of supernatural figures belonging to Chinese and global mythology that embody a harmonious relationship between humans and nature, can be read as an attempt to decolonize science fiction, via a symbolic display of multispecies entanglement.

The Study of Language Resources Revealing Mental Disorders in a Literary Text

Different writers try to organize and refine the raw material of facts to empathize and clarify what is the most significant in life in diverse ways. Each writer’s style is unique. Nothing is straightforward in the world of literary taste. Just there are writers who worship figurative language; there are others who apart from figurative language use graphic devices for narratives and sending messages to readers. The way in which authors manipulate these means as well as how they apply them in the context evoke readers’ appropriate comprehension. As a result, readers draw inferences as they are expected to do. The present paper aims at clarifying what graphic means are applied while portraying Charlie in “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, a mentally disabled person and his hurt and sufferings. In the world of fiction authors often violate the accepted rules in order to achieve particular purposes. Being one of graphic means, punctuation is frequently ignored by the author in “Flowers for Algernon”. Therefore, the author creates the appropriate atmosphere. The other device that helps the author affect readers is graphic realization of mispronounced words, whose importance is also analyzed in the work. One more device analyzed and illustrated in the paper is a spelling mistake that is deliberately made by the author to achieve particular goals.Graphic means are considered visual effects that have a great influence on readers since authors want their readers to infer their main message. The way the author uses to portray a vivid image of a mentally disabled person is marked by the application of some graphic devices.

The Mouse of the Mysteries

Abstract This article presents an imaginative exercise in which a fictional author from the year 4025 details results from excavations of archaeological sites dating to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Based on analyses of small domestic finds, as well as the discovery of a monumental complex utilizing similar imagery, the author concludes that people must have worshipped an anthropomorphic mouse god – the Historical Mouse – in the Mechano-Digital Age, keeping devotional votives in their homes and traveling at least once a year to a primary space of worship centered around the experience of various ritual mysteries. This article calls upon students to perform a self-evaluation about their own assumptions and approaches to the ancient world as they witness a hypothetical historian make outrageous, yet plausible, errors in the course of trying to describe an ‘ancient’ religion.

Maak een vuist als je geen hand hebt. Inclusiviteit in (pre)historische jeugdromans

The one-handed hero: Inclusiveness in historical fiction for childrenHaving grown up with a sister in a wheelchair meant that I took this normalcy into the fictional world of the past. So when I crossed paths with Drem in Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1958 novel Warrior Scarlet, he was to me just a boy with one functional arm. It was not until much later that I realised he was one of the very few protagonists in historical fiction with a disability. A lack of inclusiveness is problematic, first, when it comes to readers identifying with the physical condition of the hero(ine) and, second, because, from an archaeological perspective, the proportion of healthy people in historical fiction seems improbably high, while the representation of people with a disability is often stereotyped. Maybe archaeologists should provide authors of historical fiction with a more informed description of the past.

The influence of 'Golden Age' authors of detective fiction, in particular, D. L. Sayers, on the public opinion of dentists and dentistry.

With her wide readership and sympathetic and intelligent handling of dentists and dentistry in her detective novels and short stories, it is probable that Dorothy Leigh Sayers(1893-1957) influenced the public perception of dentists favourably, as being true professionals, particularly after the 1921 Act made it a fully closed specialty. Her encounter with a dental automaton seen when she was very young is acknowledged by her as a formative influence.

Managing the narratives in narrative media brands

ABSTRACT Research on media brands is a growth area, but recently most of this research has focused on news media brands leaving the management of narrative media brands underexplored. This article explores how the creators of narrative media brands manage their narratives, characters, and storyworlds. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with authors and video game developers and analysed using thematic analysis. The results suggest participants had a general appreciation of the importance of the brand management and marketing of their creations’ narratives, characters, and storyworlds, but a deeper understanding of their necessity for success was lacking, particularly for the fiction authors.

METAMORPHOSIS: REACTIVATION IN DEVELOPMENT OF UNNAMED NARRATOR IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S SURFACING

Margaret Atwood stands as a beacon of creative versatility in the realm of literature, boasting a distinguished and internationally renowned reputation. She holds a place among the most acclaimed authors of fiction in recent memory. Atwood's second published novel, "Surfacing," not only showcases her prowess in prose but also delves into thematic concerns reminiscent of her poetic works. In "Surfacing," Atwood masterfully crafts a narrative that follows a woman burdened by the toll of her past marital experiences. However, what sets this novel apart is the protagonist's transformative journey from a state of psychic and emotional paralysis to one of unified agency. This progression carries with it a potent mythic dimension, a depth that distinguishes it from her earlier works. Through evocative prose, Atwood paints a portrait of resilience and self-discovery that resonates profoundly with readers, cementing her status as a literary luminary.Top of Form Metamorphosis (Transformation) is widely used themes in literature and its situations are varied in different works. The cause for transformation is diverse and can be portrayed in numerous ways. The present research paper is present the role of Metamorphosis (transformation) in the context of Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing. The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the unnamed narrator’s the way of Metamorphosis. In 'Surfacing' the narrator undergoes both physical and psychological metamorphosis, navigating a complex terrain of self-discovery and identity. The return to her childhood home in the remote Canadian wilderness serves as a catalyst for her transformation, prompting a reconnection with her past and a confrontation with suppressed memories and emotions. This journey parallels an internal metamorphosis as she sheds societal expectations and embraces her true self. Additionally, the narrator’s interactions with the natural world play a crucial role in her transformation. Immersed in the wilderness, she becomes attuned to its rhythms, blurring the boundaries between herself and her environment. This fusion symbolizes a profound metamorphosis, as she transcends human constraints and embraces a more primal existence. ‘Surfacing’ offers a compelling exploration of Metamorphosis through the lens of the unnamed narrator's journey. Atwood's nuanced portrayal of transformation invites readers to reflect on their own experiences of identity and introspection, making 'Surfacing' a timeless and thought-provoking work of literature."

The ‘Gentle Recitation’: Writing Trauma in Contemporary Children's and Young Adult Literature

Trauma signifies the collapse of personal, social, and cultural meaning systems that causes a rupture to the bond that unifies the individual and the society. While narration of such devastation has been deemed impossible, and its presence in children's and young adult (YA) literature has been debated at great length, writers have attempted, nevertheless, to narrate the ‘unspeakable’ and ‘unrepresentable’ through memoirs and fiction for adults as well as children. Through the study of a select list of titles for children and young adults on the contemporary suffering and displaced populations of Syria and Palestine, this article aims to study the narration of trauma for young readers. It evinces the narrative strategies employed by authors to strike a balance between the two extremes of suffering and optimism. In doing so, it establishes that YA fiction authors construct a niche narrative that offers the realism of trauma through a safe distance.

The Pretense Mode of Fiction. On the Practice of Fiction in Literary Studies

Since the late twentieth century, fiction, once primarily connected to the arts, has gradually become a much-debated topic in a wide range of research fields and disciplines including law and philosophy. However, as many different disciplines are now increasingly thematizing fiction and various usages of the term “fiction” exist, there is danger of mixing up the different definitions of this term, making it difficult to compare the approaches. In order to enable a comparison between “fiction” in those disciplines which this special issue focusses on, this article discusses fiction from a literary studies perspective. The aim is to unfold what it means for a literary text to be considered fiction and by doing so, elaborate on the peculiarities of fiction in the literary field. To facilitate the comparison, some essential distinctions that have become established in German scholarship require explanation first. The differentiation between fictionality as a potential property of texts and fictivity as a potential property of objects within fiction is rarely found in Anglo-American discussions of fictionality in literature but has become a central distinction in German discussions. By distinguishing between these two levels of fiction, it also becomes clear why reality does not necessarily function as fiction’s opposite—an assumption that can still be found frequently, especially in the everyday usage of the term “fiction.” Furthermore, this article will show that literary fictions do not even have to include invented characters, actions, and events, because the crucial point lies in the specific communicative stance authors of fiction demand from their readers. Hence, simply defining fiction as texts or other media that deal with invented characters, actions, or events would be inaccurate according to recent, pragmatic approaches in literary studies that clearly dominate the contemporary discourse on fiction. From the perspective of pragmatic approaches, what constitutes fiction is a very intricate question and cannot be answered by merely focusing on textual or semantic properties. That fiction cannot be determined through the content level will be demonstrated by evaluating the four most prominent and plausible accounts of fiction. After briefly discussing the pros and cons of these major accounts, I will focus on why this article favors John R. Searle’s approach to fiction, which emphasizes the pretense aspect as the peculiarity of fiction-making in communicative terms. The introduction concludes with a discussion of two core licenses that follow from the pretense strategy for authors of fiction, namely the license to choose any mode of presentation for their fictional story (communicative freedom), and secondly, the license to depict any topic and content they want (ontological freedom). Due to its clarificatory purpose, this essay does not offer a new understanding or even approach to fiction. Instead, it provides an overview of the core ideas regarding literary fiction for a readership that might come from various disciplines, albeit the special focus is on law as this issue’s central one. The article is deliberately written as a concise introduction to major approaches to fiction and fictionality in the field of literary studies or literary theory with a focus on the discussion in German scholarship in comparison to Anglo-American scholarship. This is meant to pave the way for the more detailed interdisciplinary and international discourse and discussion which make up the main bulk of the special issue.

Revisiting Predictions about the Future of Human Life in 20th Century American Sci-Fis

Predictions and illustrations of life in the future are often integrated in works of science fiction, which could not be immediately proven yet possibly fascinating when looked back on several decades later or at the times predicted in the works. Science fiction authors foretell such events by borrowing theories, concepts, or simply terms used by scientists. Those theories, concepts, and terms can be written in scientific journals or in more popular media. American science fiction works, for instance, illustrate the future by their adaptation in the forms of more popular media such as movies, video games, and the works categorized as the subgenres of cyber literature. All of them are discussed in this paper from the lens of New Historicism, which believes in equality between literary and non-literary texts in viewing phenomena that exist in society, one of which is the relationship between science fiction works, their writers, their readers, and society. Technology is seen as a product of society, so it becomes broadly part of culture. Meanwhile, emerging technology is sometimes coincidental and random, so it can also be seen that technology determines people’s movements and lifestyles. This study contributes to ongoing discussions on the ethical and societal implications of speculative narratives by highlighting the interconnectedness between literature, science, technology, and society.

Integrating Artificial Intelligence in Naruto Fan Fiction Writing: A Case Study

The paper highlights communicative, ethical, and educational aspects of AI applications for fan fiction writing. This study is the first attempt to analyze opportunities and academic aspects of using AI for fan fiction writing. The article offers a brief overview of research aspects of AI and fan fiction and presents a case study an AI-generated fanfic based on Naruto series. The objective of the work is to study the use of artificial intelligence in the context of fan fiction writing, specifically focusing on how AI technology can assist or enhance the creative process of fan fiction authors. The research questions aim to investigate the implications and opportunities of employing AI in fan fiction writing and education, shedding light on the evolving relationship between technology and creative expression in online communities. While AI technology can offer various benefits and enhancements to the creative process of fan fiction writing, there are also some drawbacks to consider when using AI for this purpose. AI-generated fan fiction may lack the creativity, originality, and emotional depth human authors can bring to their writing. Using AI-powered fan fiction can be a creative and engaging way to assist in learning foreign languages. AI-generated fan fiction can expose learners to authentic language use, colloquial expressions, and cultural references in a fun and interactive format. Reading fan fiction in the target language can help improve vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension skills. When working with already published fan fiction, some ethical and legal issues arise, such as copyright infringement, plagiarism, and misrepresentation.

Nowy człowiek, wersja 2.0 (na podstawie wybranych utworów prozy rosyjskiej i ukraińskiej)

The aim of this article is to explore the future human’s place, role, and status. The analysis draws on selected works of prominent modern Russian and Ukrainian writers, including science fiction authors such as Anna Starobinets, Dmitry Glukhovsky, Vladimir Sorokin, Viktor Pelevin, Boris Akunin, and Max Kidruk. The analysis concludes that amidst rapid scientific advancement, humanity may achieve potential immortality, but paradoxically, it could lose its dominant position in the world. In the post-anthropocentric era, challenges will emerge concerning human interactions with robots, androids, avatars, cyborgs, and bots, necessitating ‘negotiations’ with these entities, now perceived as full-fledged members of society.

The Patent Law Origins of Science Fiction

This Article reveals the surprising role of patent law in shaping the literary genre of science fiction. Drawing on previously unpublished sources, the Article shows that Hugo Gernsback— the so-called “father” of science fiction who started the first all-science-fiction magazine in 1926—believed that works of science fiction are analogous to patents. Like patents, science fiction stories can disclose useful information to the public about new inventions. Like patents, science fiction stories can influence future inventors and drive innovation. Gernsback went even further, positing that some of the inventions depicted in science fiction should themselves be patentable. In 1952, he urged Congress to reform the Patent Act to make so-called “Provisional Patents” available to science fiction authors who depicted major technological developments before their time. He argued that science fiction authors who filed for Provisional Patents should get an extra thirty years in which to show their invention worked. If they could do so, they would thereafter be able to obtain an ordinary patent, to last another twenty years. Many will find Gernsback’s proposal deeply problematic from the perspective of patent policy, and rightly so. Granting patent rights too early in an invention’s lifecycle creates new and unjustified opportunities to hold up innovation. A science fiction author who obtained a Provisional Patent for a theoretical invention could crawl out of the woodwork half a century later and sue the very people who figured out how to make the invention work. Gernsback’s ideas for patent reform were half-baked and, the Article shows, probably self-serving. Nonetheless, exploring the connection he cultivated between patents and science fiction yields many surprising insights for science fiction and for innovation policy. Science fiction has more in common with patents than it might seem. Although science fiction does not typically impart enough information to “enable” others to make and use the inventions it describes, science fiction can inspire readers and supply them with a motivation—in Gernsback’s words, a “stimulus”—to implement science fictional inventions in the real world. Science fiction, like patents, can play a role in promoting innovation.

Educational futures and social justice

This paper considers educational futures from the perspective of social justice. It takes as its framework futures studies, which looks at what is probable (what is likely to happen), what is possible (what could happen), and what is preferable (what we would like to see/make happen). It also makes the case for science fiction as a method of inquiry, arguing that science fiction is a useful method for determining what we think we might (or might not) want futures to look like, as well as where we think we are now. Science fiction, the paper argues, is as much about our anxieties about the present and where we might be headed as it is about any sort of futures we may ultimately arrive at. The paper draws from the works of well-known science fiction authors of color (WEB DuBois, Octavia Butler, NK Jemisin) as well as from lesser-known science fiction authors writing from American Indian, Latino/a/X, and LGBTQIA + communities. In so doing, the paper explores how science fiction has infiltrated the social imagination and how it leads to paths both dystopian (à la Elon Musk) and liberating (such as Afrofuturism). It concludes with examples of the probable, the possible, and the preferable in educational futures, drawing from contemporary science fiction stories centered on social justice.