Genre Of Fiction Research Articles

Interpreting History Through Fiction

In ‘Interpreting History Through Fiction: Three Writers Discuss their Methods’, creative historical authors Thom Conroy, Joanna Grochowicz and Cristina Sanders engage in a conversation about the intersection of history and fiction. Arising from a session of the 2021 New Zealand Historical Association Conference entitled ‘Learning History Through Fiction’, the three-way dialogue interrogates the role of learning history from creative texts, navigates the fact/fiction balance in creative historical writing, explores concerns about the potential for harm in historical fiction, outlines the authors' own motives for adopting a creative approach to history, and examines what Hilary Mantel calls the ‘readerly contract’ in historical fiction. The conversation does not seek consensus nor finality in the answers offered to the questions the authors have put to one another. Rather, the authors allow contradictions and disagreements to remain intact, thus conveying their collective sense of open-endedness regarding creative approaches to history. This open-endedness is intentional, as the answers that arise from dialogue are intended to be as provisional and contingent as the evolving genre of historical fiction itself.

Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name as a Feminist Bildungsroman

In accordance with the increasing confirmation within feminist literary and cultural studies on women’s literature and the rumination of its social function to provide a sympathetic as well as a critical analysis of contemporary feminist fiction, this paper explores the attempt of women writers to reconfigure and reformulate established fictional genres to create more responsive genres that better represent the heterogeneity of women’s experiences. Focusing on the way Audre Lorde incorporates individual and collective memories as well as erotic and traumatic memories in her literary works, I use the literary category of feminist Bildungsroman to examine her biomythography, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name in which she presents an alternative model of female development. The paper traces the strenuous personal development and transformation of Audre as a black woman endeavouring to challenge marginalization and resist the various forms and layers of abuse and subjugation practiced against her in a racist and sexist society. Taking into consideration that the political implications of women’s writing can only be theorized when it is related to the cultural and ideological processes that shape it, I employ Rita Felski’s analysis of women’s modern writing as a area where female political identities and collective consciousness are treated and depicted.
 In accordance with the increasing confirmation within feminist literary and cultural studies on women’s literature and the rumination of its social function to provide a sympathetic as well as a critical analysis of contemporary feminist fiction, this paper explores the attempt of women writers to reconfigure and reformulate established fictional genres to create more responsive genres that better represent the heterogeneity of women’s experiences. Focusing on the way Audre Lorde incorporates individual and collective memories as well as erotic and traumatic memories in her literary works, I use the literary category of feminist Bildungsroman to examine her biomythography, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name in which she presents an alternative model of female development. The paper traces the strenuous personal development and transformation of Audre as a black woman endeavouring to challenge marginalization and resist the various forms and layers of abuse and subjugation practiced against her in a racist and sexist society. Taking into consideration that the political implications of women’s writing can only be theorized when it is related to the cultural and ideological processes that shape it, I employ Rita Felski’s analysis of women’s modern writing as a area where female political identities and collective consciousness are treated and depicted.

Narrative Devices in Motion: From Genre Fiction to Mainstream Fictoin in Florin Chirculescu’s Prose

This article explores the dynamics between Romanian genre fiction and mainstream fiction in the postcommunist period, trying to negotiate the instrumentalizations of narrative devices usually found in popular literature (be it fantasy, crime, or mystery fiction) in a novel that transcends normative genre boundaries. Thus, the text traces a specific way in which some Romanian writers (in this case Florin Chirculescu) have navigated the strenuous path brought by capitalism in the local literary scene.

Law and Literature – New Tendencies Based on the Example of Science Fiction Motifs

Abstract This article presents an example of law and literature movement applicability as a phenomenon in legal sciences. It shows the links between law and literature based on the example of the features that are characteristic of literature and, at the same time, are important in the reflection of the philosophy of law and in current law-making practice. This approach is inspired by a cultural approach to legal theory and philosophy (cultural studies of law). The law and literature movement deals with diverse issues in the field of the integration of legal sciences with linguistics and literary theory. The law and literature movement is not novel in the Anglo-Saxon legal culture, as opposed to Polish law science where it is rather new and has recently been gaining in popularity. In this paper, I will try to answer the question of how the law and literature movement and research perspectives originating from this trend could be an inspiration for further use in legal philosophy. This reflection is inspired by some works in the science fiction (S-F) genre.

The Linguistic Shape of Things to Come

Abstract Published in 1958, The Languages of Pao by Jack Vance is one of the earliest linguistic speculations in the science fiction genre. Directly inspired by the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, it describes a complex, linguistic engineering experiment set up to transform the essentially peaceful nature of the inhabitants of the planet Pao, so that they might stand up to invaders from another planet. It does so through the creation and implementation of three new languages, as opposed to the one they already speak, to create a merchant class, technical class, and warrior class. While Vance’s extrapolation is excessively schematic, and certainly leans heavily on a concept of linguistic relativism that now sounds rather dated, other science fiction writers have explored in different ways the idea that language influences thought and perception of the world, beginning with Babel 17 by Samuel Delany, and Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life (on which the film The Arrival by Denis Villeneuve is based). But of particular importance here is Mother Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin. Her novel is set in a dystopian, patriarchal future, where a group of linguists creates an artificial language, the Làadan, to better express women’s perception of life and as an act of resistance to the dominant male-centred culture, thus anticipating many themes in today’s debate on language and gender.

Popularization of Scientific and Technical Knowledge, Aviation, Military and Political Issues Conceptualized in the Literary Works of Nikolai Nikolaevich Shpanov (1896-1961)

The paper discusses popular science and fiction (primarily science fiction) works of N.N. Shpanov, the Soviet writer and pilot, one of the founders of military fiction genre in Soviet literature. In his works a certain mood in society, its aspirations and expectations, supported by the country’s political leaders, are mirrored. The article analyzes as well N.N. Shpanov’s activity in the field of promotion of knowledge about aviation, writer's prediction on the course of the upcoming clash with a powerful western power (Germany), made by him on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, and the role of military aviation in this confrontation. The main conclusion of the study is that in the 1920-1930s N.N. Shpanov, having gained technical knowledge and broad experience in the period of his studying at the Polytechnic University, then at aeronautical courses and later on while serving in aviation, in his literary work popularizes new ideas coherent with geographical research, science, and technology, especially aviation. Since the late 1930s in writings of N.N. Shpanov the disposition towards spreading the ideas and policies of the Stalin period’s Soviet propaganda showed itself. The imprint of large-scale historical events, military, and technical concepts reflected in books of N.N. Shpanov makes the analysis of his works substantial as it is firmly bound with the history of science, aviation, and social consciousness in the USSR.

Solving crimes, telling stories: An interview with Tom Ryan

Like the interviewer, Tom Ryan is based in Nova Scotia, in Canada’s Maritimes. Ryan is the author of more than a half-dozen books, including some critically acclaimed works for young readers: Keep This to Yourself (), for example, earned the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award for YA Crime Book and the 2020 ITW Award for Best YA Thriller; more recently I Hope You’re Listening () was awarded the 2021 Lambda Literary Award. In what follows, Ryan and I dwell on these two novels to explore what attracts him to the YA genre, his writing process, central themes in his oeuvre and how he imbues his characters with psychological complexity. This interview contributes to scholarship by expanding critical attention on Nova Scotian literature and by attending to Ryan’s remarkably successful works of genre fiction.

Exploring/Inventing East-European Noir. An Attempt to Modelling Historical Transformation

The essay proposes a common spectrum of noir detective fictions emerging in the countries of the former Soviet Bloc. Accordingly, it substantiates the assumption that similar political, social, cultural, economic threats and opportunities contributed to the preservation of a certain air de famille among the genre productions of the countries of the area even after the fall of Communism. The common Communist heritage of genre fiction, cinema, and television is synthesised in three main categories: Cold War “noir” and Socialist “grey”, alternative noir, and popular noir. The crime & detection dimensions of the EU phase of the evolution of East-European countries are equally organised in three clusters, called retrospective noir, introspective noir, and prospective noir.

The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature: Writing the Unspeakable, by Joseph Valente and Margot Gayle Backus

<i>The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature: Writing the Unspeakable</i>, by Joseph Valente and Margot Gayle Backus

METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF TEACHING THE GENRE OF SCIENCE FICTION IN INSTITUTIONS OF GENERAL SECONDARY EDUCATION (ON THE EXAMPLE OF KURT VONNEGUT’S NOVEL «CAT’S CRADLE»)

This article is devoted to the role of the cultural aspect in literary education. The necessity to create a comprehensive system of studying the science fiction genre of the 20th century (on the example of Kurt Vonnegut’s «Cat’s Cradle») at the final stage of school literary education has been identified and substantiated. At the center of the concept of modern literary education and upbringing are the personality of the student, his desire to understand the whole picture of the world, mastering culture as the experience of previous generations, involvement in spiritual heritage. To the extent that the student-reader learns the experience passed on by previous generations, to the extent that he will be able to navigate the constantly changing conditions of life, realize his own responsibility to the future generation. The cultural illiteracy of high school students, the loss of connection with the spiritual culture of their people and humanity in general speak of the need to educate a «person of culture» in a modern school. In this regard, an important role in the formation of emotional perception and understanding of various facts of the culture of both their own and other nations is played by lexicographers and the literature classes conducted by them, aimed at studying literary works against the background of a broad cultural context. Involvement in the historical-literary process will help students to see patterns in the development of foreign culture and literature in particular. An important point is the culturalization of education, which is aimed at globalization in the field of culture and education, associated with increasing interest in the problems of the cultural identity of peoples. Globalization in education is a single world cultural and educational space, a single world labor market and educational services. The cultural aspect of education determines the composition and hierarchy of values, the system- creating element of which is the student’s personality as the main value. There is no doubt that the implementation of the cultural aspect of teaching literature at school contributes to the effective entry of students into the context of culture, forms in them a system of key value ideas about the world and man, which become worldview guidelines. The cultural aspect makes it possible to overcome the stereotypes accumulated in the perception and analysis of both foreign literature (works in the light of the cultural aspect of the study return with new facets and open new meanings) and foreign culture as a whole. Undoubtedly, the cultural aspect allows one to consider the work of art in three planes: a generalized model of the world, national and cultural specificity, the author’s own model of the world and man, where his philosophical, religious, moral and aesthetic views are presented. Implementation of the cultural aspect in education is possible in the process of development of the value-meaning sphere of the individual.

A Very Peculiar Practice: a very modern campus comedy, 35 years on

On May 21st 1986, the BBC broadcast the first episode of Andrew Davies’s black campus comedy A Very Peculiar Practice. 2021 celebrated the series’ 35th anniversary. This article provides an analysis of the contribution of the series to the genre of campus comedy. It provides an evaluation of the major themes, plots and characters introduced throughout the series and how these reflected, and reacted to, the political environment and ideology of the time. The series is discussed in the broader context of the campus novel, the genre of fiction in which staff, students and university management are satirised, and its contribution to the genre of television and film medicine/hospital comedy is also discussed.

Beyond the Binary: Queer (Im)possibilities of Bisexual Desires in Selected US Young Adult Novels

There has been rapid growth in the representation of bisexual characters in US YA since 2010 in both genre fiction that has traditionally been dominated by the stories of heterosexual protagonists, and in popular YA trends, particularly the teen love triangle plot. Improvements in bisexual representation in happy, loving, meaningful queer relationships, however, still requires critical vigilance against the equation between homonormativity and queer futurities in YA, as the latter “will not be achieved by simply retelling and celebrating a single story” (Matos and Wargo 8). A particular challenge for queering conventional romance plots is the stereotyping and essentialising of bisexuals as selfish, hyper-sexual, attention-seeking or undecided, in a system of bi-erasure underpinned by monosexism. This belief that all sexualities are located at either end or at some point along the homo-heterosexual scale remains a powerful force of bi-erasure, such that tensions can arise when romance conventions and dichotomous plot structures are used to depict characters whose desires are beyond this binary. I examine four recent YA novels for their representation of bisexual characters within love triangle plots in genre fiction to highlight how these queer characters remain constrained by essentialised views of bisexuality. Despite each novel resolving the love triangle dilemma in different ways, they offer bisexual teen readers little hope for acceptance or understanding, even within relationships, and, that current political and social systems, including monosexism, are unassailable.

Образ авантюристки в романе Дафны дю Морье «Мери Энн»

The study aims to determine psychological techniques in providing insight into the female image in Daphne du Maurier’s novel “Mary Anne” (1954). The protagonist of the work is a real historical figure, the writer’s great-grandmother Mary Anne Clarke. The story of Mary Anne, a famous courtesan, favourite of the King’s brother, the Duke of York, as narrated by Daphne du Maurier is a realisation of the manipulation plot. Daphne du Maurier presents a fascinating story of the dependence of England’s political system in the late XVIII century - the early XIX century on a woman’s gamble. Court intrigues and political feuds are skillfully woven into the narrative of the rise and fall of Mary Anne. Scientific originality of the study is determined in the research methodology. The researcher identifies the specifics of the author’s style in the presentation of historical material in the genre of fiction. The correlation of the historical and the literary forms the basis of philological analysis. As a result of the study, it has been proved that the absence of a subjectively marked unambiguous understanding of a woman’s role in society in women’s writing makes it possible for the author to present an assessment of one and the same historical fact from different angles. The same purpose is served by the interweaving of narrative elements inherent in the detective genre into the traditional manipulation plot. The change of semantic dominants in the text allows Daphne du Maurier to reproduce a unique literary image that is far from unambiguous interpretation.

An Analysis of Popular Fiction Movie: Feminism in Movie Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

Film is one of American popular culture that attracts many people around the world. America has many movie genres, one of which is a fictional film genre. Fiction works do have very unique characters, from the storyline to the characters in the fictional film. In addition, in the modern era, feminism has been applied in everyday life, starting from education, politics, etc. This article analyzed the feminism of the character of Miss Peregrine in the American fiction film titled Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) by using semiotic theory. The results show that several scenes in the film represent feminism through Miss Peregrine's character, those are as a hero and as a leader. In addition, there is ecofeminism in the film.

The Time-traveling Lawyer: Using Time Travel Stories and Science Fiction in Legal Education

Abstract Science fiction and time travel can be used to inform and enhance the education of law students in profound ways. Within the broader field of law and literature, the relationship between law and science fiction, especially time travel stories, is rich and useful. Themes and concepts in time travel can be applied in the exploration of existing legal philosophies as well as a more expansive and engaging study of power, authority, freedom, and a number of global issues. As governments and people worldwide wrestle with climate change, armed conflict, pandemics, and the increasing significance of artificial intelligence and other advances in technology, time travel stories give students unique contexts in which to consider what law is and the degree to which it defines human experience. For generations, brilliant science fiction writers have offered thought-provoking stories and worlds that law professors and their students can use to reimagine legal thought and practice. Like its close relatives, mythology and fantasy, the science fiction genre is untethered to current social or political experience or projections necessarily corrupted by narrowly conceived historical perspectives. Science fiction writers are interested in illuminating possibilities by considering identifiable problems in unidentifiable environments. It is no accident that gender identity, racism, reproductive rights, extremist ideologies, global health crises, and various recognizable forms of labor exploitation are addressed in provocative and insightful ways by a number of the best science fiction writers. Law has a strong presence in their work. Judges, law givers, ruling groups, and other less familiar forms of power and control appear in these stories and help to move and shape the experience of the time traveler. Law students can draw on the work of these writers to consider old questions in new and refreshingly broad ways. The importance of communication and access to information are also strong themes common to law and science fiction. How are concepts of truth and propaganda significant to power? Is truth necessary for legitimacy? Information technologies introduced in the science fiction world now exist in real time in forms and with speed and volume unimagined even a few decades ago. As artificial intelligence becomes dominant in many aspects of our daily lives, law students must consider how it may change law making, court procedures, entire legal systems, and perhaps even concepts of justice. As a project, law students might develop a case and conduct a trial using an AI judge or try a case to an AI jury. How human is the law? The role of emotional intelligence and concepts like mercy, restorative justice, forgiveness, or retribution are also things they might explore in seminars or other classes using science fiction literature and other time travel media as a framework.

Strategies for Utilizing Fiction Literature as an Antidote to Radical Islamic Understanding among Students of UIN KHAS Jember

This research was motivated by the desire to describe efforts to prevent radical Islamic understanding that developed among students by utilizing literary reading materials. The research that will be conducted is a qualitative descriptive research based on field research. The research focuses on “the strategy of using fiction genre literature as an antidote to radical Islamic understanding among students of UIN KHAS Jember. There are several research focuses that will be examined in this study. First, what fictions contain the teachings of kaffah Islam and can be used as media to counter radical Islam at UIN KHAS Jember? Second, how to implement the use of fiction in an effort to counteract radical Islamic teachings among students of UIN KHAS Jember? The results of this study are as follows. First, fictions containing kaffah Islamic teachings include Gus Jafar, Ayat-Ayat Cinta, Teroris, Kang Soleh, Robohnya Surau Kami. Second, the implementation of the use of fiction at UIN KHAS Jember in the form of short stories and novels is maximized in the form of lecture assignments. Lecturers give directions to students to read and study selected fiction. Lecturers provide assistance and provide explanations about fictional mandates. This method is effective in strengthening the understanding of moderate Islam for students.

Beyond fact and fiction: Cultural memory and transmedia ethics in Netflix’s The Crown

The aim of this study is to discuss the potential ethical implications of the fictionalization of historical events represented across multiple media platforms – under the powerful umbrella of streaming media services en général and Netflix in particular – to examine the potential impact fictionalization has on what is culturally remembered and what is forgotten. Combining theoretical approaches from transmedia studies and cultural memory, the article addresses possible ethical conundrums involved in the Netflix historical drama series about the reign of Queen Elizabeth II: The Crown. Methodologically, the article is structured as a case study underpinned by the multidimensional analytical model proposed by Erll, chosen to explore how the blurred lines between fact and fiction of the flagship historical drama The Crown could have ethical implications for and impact on what is remembered and what is forgotten regarding recent memories of the British Royal Family. The research findings indicate that a deeper understanding of the conventions of the historical fiction genre, as well as the transmedial ramifications of streaming media productions, could potentially mitigate the ethical implications of The Crown, going above and beyond fact and fiction.

Conceptual Overview (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Conceptual Overview (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Impossible Dreaming: On Speculative Education Fiction and Hopeful Learning Futures

In this paper, we grapple with the possibility of rethinking education futures by arguing for the continued use of speculative education fiction in critical education studies, a method which has the potential for radical imagination. However, we note that, as a research method, such fictions need to rely less on what we identify as pessimistic visions of the future, which are visions exploring themes such as disconnection, lack of autonomy and sovereignty, and technological, corporate, state and/or authoritarian control, as these visions and themes are currently over-represented in recent publications using this method. We further demonstrate the limits of these thematic visions by tracing the relationship between the ways in which pessimistic storytelling, related as it is to apocalyptic storytelling, risks reinforcing inequality, especially with respect to settler colonial injustice. Alternatively, we propose using this method to help develop hopeful futures. These are futures shaped by themes, such as connection, agency and community and individual flourishment, and suggest a turn to the genres of hopepunk, solarpunk and visionary fiction as models of storytelling grounded in hope which imagines more liberatory education and learning futures.

Reading Practices of Students of the Metropolitan Metropolis: “Amateurs” and “Pragmatists”

Modern social processes (globalization, urbanization, digitalization, succession of generations and others) actualize public and scientific attention to students’ reading culture, reading practices and their various aspects (gender, social, economic, and others). The issue of culture of reading, reading practices, their features and structure is a topical and relatively under-developed topic of interdisciplinary analysis. These phenomena are considered in sociology within the framework of some concepts: as a separate type of practice in the process of personal literacy formation, through the connection of cultural heritage and social class, through the analysis of subjective and existential meanings of the reading experience, and others. It is interesting to study the reading practices of students due to the specificity of the subject-object role of this social group in the process of cultural intergenerational continuity. The article highlights the results of an empirical study conducted among students of Moscow universities. Two types of students’ attitudes to works of fiction are revealed: pragmatic and value-reflective. The characteristics of these two groups are given, compared with other indicators (love of reading, reading as pleasure, volume of reading, genres of fiction, and others). The main conclusions and results presented in the publication will be of interest to teachers, scientists, representatives of state and public organizations and specifically to students.