Form Of Fiction Research Articles

Thoughts on “Dual Narrative Dynamics”

Thoughts on “Dual Narrative Dynamics”

“The London Resistance Movement”: Plotting Postwar Dissent in Rose Macaulay’s The World My Wilderness

This article argues that an ethos of resistance permeates Macaulay’s The World My Wilderness and develops a feminist-historical lens to read the novel as a social critique of wartime myths around collaboration and resistance. Resistance operates at the level of plot and thematically; it also marks the novel’s form; and it describes the book’s status within scholarship, as it straddles traditional timeframes and schools of criticism. The article excavates the novel’s major preoccupations with ruins as sites of resistance to consensus, and collaboration as a problematic but plausible means of wartime survival under occupation. Macaulay’s novel ‘makes history’ in all senses of the phrase: it looks back on the recent past to capture a liminal moment in British history before it solidifies into myth; it reflects in fictional form real tensions in postwar society; and it provides today’s readers with a complex understanding of a period still easily reduced to clichés.

Victim, litigant, activist, messiah: the child in a time of climate change

In this article, I identify and examine four framings of the child in regard to climate change issues, including activism and policy reform. My focus is on the extent to which children are moving beyond the category of victim and assuming a disparate role and distinctive voice in various climate discourses: as litigant, as activist and as messiah. I explore the changing role of the child as a political, legal and social phenomenon, and consider the extent to which writers of climate and other forms of fiction have anticipated and contribute to these different framings of the child.

Excavating the Modern Self: Haggard’s Egyptological Romances

Henry Rider Haggard’s Egyptomania took many shapes, from regular journeys to Egypt to extensive collections of ancient Egyptian artefacts. This article looks more particularly at Haggard’s representation of ancient Egypt in his literary works and at the implications of his narrative choices in the scientific and imperial context in which he wrote his Egyptological romances. By establishing genealogical links between ancient Egypt and modern Britain through the literary form of archaeological fiction, Haggard constructs a palimpsestic vision of individual and collective history that can be read both in psychoanalytical and in imperial terms. This paper examines the place Egypt occupies in Haggard’s imagination by considering some of the narrative and narratological elements shared by his Egyptological romances, with a particular focus on The Ancient Allan and “Smith and the Pharaohs”. The depiction of Egypt as an oneiric place located within the Victorian mind and as the origin of a layered modern identity suggests an ambivalent interpretation of Haggard’s imperialist stance at the turn of the twentieth century.

Fraternelle mélancolie: Melville et Hawthorne, une passion

Fraternelle mélancolie: Melville et Hawthorne, une passion

As Late plays de Tennessee Williams:

Este artigo apresenta as peças inéditas de Tennessee Williams no Brasil, chamadas late plays nos Estados Unidos, aquelas escritas na terceira fase de sua carreira. Discute-se sua recepção, os preconceitos e a inabilidade de compreensão de suas propostas inovadoras de forma e conteúdo, advindas da absorção, pelo dramaturgo, de sua presença constante nos circuitos off e off-off-Broadway, nas décadas de 1950 a 1970. Suas principais características são o afastamento do realismo, a mescla de gêneros e estilos e a exposição de expedientes da homossexualidade aberta, certamente uma narrativa apreendida das insurreições da contracultura. A leitura hegemônica, o culto às peças mais celebradas, a tendência contemporânea de adaptações, a ausência de traduções e as dificuldades de aquisição de direitos autorais dificultam o estudo, a leitura e a difusão destas obras no Brasil. São apresentadas as produções brasileiras e os escassos trabalhos acadêmicos sobre elas no país. Com base na análise desta dramaturgia inédita e contracultural, conclui-se, por fim, que Williams empregou uma poesia teatral de desfiguração para minar as convenções miméticas de uma dramaturgia que se exterioriza em metadrama e promove a cisão com os conteúdos ficcionais e formas realistas do teatro estadunidense.

Building the ‘houses of fiction’: textual spaces and architectural imagination in Eliza Meteyard’s Mainstone’s Housekeeper

ABSTRACT This article offers a new reading of Eliza Meteyard’s fictional writing within the emerging discourse on architecture and design in nineteenth-century Britain. It considers how the format of the novel, Mainstone’s Housekeeper (1860), articulates and enforces Meteyard’s construction of the textual space as both a narrative and architectural endeavour. I argue that the conceptual idea of literary architecture provides a metaphorical lens through which to understand the analogy between building and writing, architecture and text. I also maintain that Meteyard’s construction of her fictional houses in Mainstone’s Housekeeper supports the theories that posit a link between interrelated notions of theatricality and interiority. My article first explores how Meteyard’s literary representations of decorative arts and architectural design became a deciding component in the development of her writing career. It, then, considers how Meteyard employs the fictional form of Mainstone’s Housekeeper to describe Miss Eliot’s endeavours to reform Mr. Radnor’s domestic affairs through her disguised identity. While Mr. Radnor’s poor management of his household creates the senses of male captivity and bleak emptiness, Miss Eliot’s redecorating project, nonetheless, reinforces her performance as an architect-designer, an embodiment of female authority in the domestic sphere.

Recent Thornton Wilder Scholarship: 2016–2020

Recent Thornton Wilder Scholarship: 2016–2020

Fiction Cares: J. M. Coetzee's Slow Man

Abstract J. M. Coetzee's Slow Man considers “care” in contemporary liberal-capitalist societies, including the ostensibly frivolous care of and care for literature. In contrast to grander affects and occupations, care often seems to be “just care,” as if it fails to live up to certain criteria of reality in much the same way that one says something is “just fiction.” If in its literary investigation of such serious issues as disability, aging, and immigration, Slow Man turns into a reflection on the ontology of fiction, this is not mere metafictional frivolity—for care shares the disparaged form of fiction. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello writings, of which Slow Man appears to be the last, advocate in fiction an “ethics of care.” They are concerned with modes of attention that lack the categorical determinacy of the discourse of rights and of justice and are instead characterized by what I propose to call “justness.” In this light, the novel can be read as examining the skepticism and disappointment with which, on account of this justness, earnest pleas for an ethics of care, or apologies for fiction, are met. The advocacy of care, as of fiction, requires not only good will but also good humor, even if this comes at the cost of being taken seriously. Accordingly, Slow Man proves to be one of the most heavy-going but also lighthearted of Coetzee's novels. It is, after all, “just a joke.”

Sequences and scenes of transposition of an unshareable experience. A semiotically released prison.

As part of the international and traveling exhibition Prison, coproduced by the International Red Cross Museum (Geneva, Switzerland), the Musée des Confluences (Lyon, France), and the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum (Dresden, Germany), a discourse on prison environment in Western societies questions public opinion about an existential space that is mostly discussed in fictional form. With a view both to inform and affect the audience, a narrative framework is woven by a diversity of mediations that nonetheless tries to escape the double reductionist fate to which prison space is subjected: ‘spectral’ trivialization (tacit invisibility) or spectacular mythification (smug ostentation). This paper deals with the (un)shareable dimension of the prison experience. One key question addressed is how to build, preserve, or restore the bridges between prisons’ inner life and the external social environment surrounding them. Adopting a pragmatic perspective, we will examine how this exhibition achieves, semiotically, releasing prisons, and prisoners from their incarceration and their mediatic banishment. Video recordings of interactions during guided tours allow us to examine how the experiences of prison life are transposed into exhibitions, the exhibitions into the guides’ discourses, the institutional discourses into public enjoyment, public enjoyment into scientific appropriation.

Simulation and Depthlessness in Postmodern Fiction: The Examples of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Teju Cole

This paper examines simulation and depthlessness in postmodern fiction using Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Teju Cole’s Every Day is for the Thief (Every Day henceforth) as illustrative texts. The theory employed in the paper is postmodernism with particular reference to Bennett and Royle’s postulation on simulation and depthlessness. The study finds that in Every Day, the use of the hyperreal competes with the reality of Lagos and creates a fictional form that makes it much more exciting. Simulation with the use of photographs in the novel is also employed to give a feel of the environment after the descriptions have been made. In Americanah, simulation with television performs the role of activating the consciousness of brands, places, people or things in the mind of Ifemelu, the major character. The paper concludes that in both novels there is conformity to the postmodern encouragement of astute observation leading to depthlessness in truth realisation. In this same vein, the truth in postmodern fiction is shaken up from consciousness without abiding to the thought processes of depth models, while simulation enables a joint participation between the reader and the narrator in the discovery process.

Augmenting cinema: the Kino-Variété (1913-14)

ABSTRACT Efforts to lend cinema-going a sense of liveness and cinematic projections a bodily presence are in vogue today. The recent rise of phenomena like ‘augmented cinema’ or ‘event cinema’ has largely been framed as responses to digitalization, home media consumption, and an experience economy in the digital age. However, they possess a long genealogy. This article examines the German Kino-Variété of the years 1913–1914, which conceptualized cinema not as a two-dimensional virtual window but as a multi-media embodied performance. Combining film and live performance, Kino-Variété productions sought to intensify filmic images through texture, depth, and various combinations of virtual and physical attractions. While the transitional era of film history has received attention primarily as a period of narrative integration, the Kino-Variété testifies to opposing tendencies gaining traction as well. The years before World War I set the course for cinema’s future: Should the medium become a feature-length form of bourgeois fiction or remain a physical, sensual, and diverse realm of short-subject variety? Although the Kino-Variété can be seen as a failed response to the specific challenges of its time, it was not merely an empirical phenomenon, but embodied an idea of cinema, an imagined future for a kaleidoscopic medium with unanticipated prescience for our own era of cinema events.

Analisis Tokoh Utama Dalam Cerpen “Banjirkap” Karya Habolhasan Asyari (Kajian Sosiologi Sastra)

Short story is a form of fiction created by human creativity and imagination that contains ideas about life and is briefly expressed, both in terms of the number of actors, the events narrated, and the overall content of the story. Sociology is a scientific and objective study of humans in society, the study of social institutions and social processes. This study aims to determine the sociology of literature as a reflection of society's literary indicators in the short story of Banjirkap by Habolhasan Asyari and its implications for learning literature in the Indonesian Language and Literature Education Study Program based on Ian Watt's reception theory. The research method used is descriptive qualitative research method. Data collection techniques used are reading techniques and note-taking techniques. The data used in this study are words or sentences in the short story of the Banjirkap by Habolhasan Asyari. The results of this study are in the form of prose structure and literary sociology, literary indicators as a reflection of society. The results obtained from the structure of prose, namely: (a) theme, (b) plot, (c) characters and characterizations, (d) setting. The sociology of literature is as follows: (a) Literature as a mirror of society.

Fan fiction as a valuable literacy practice

The future of literacy requires an incorporation of the new texts that are emerging from the evolution of popular culture. Though curriculum reform is a complex task, the source material is readily available to educators in the form of fan fiction. Fan fiction is a valuable literacy practice and should be used in the classroom because it encourages creativity and literacy appreciation, promotes socialization, offers a platform for self-exploration, and motivates students to advance their writing skills.

Jeff VanderMeer, or the Novel Trapped in the Open World

ABSTRACT Jeff VanderMeer’s writing has been widely described as ecofiction, responsive primarily to anthropogenic climate change. My reading of the Southern Reach Trilogy (2014), Borne (2017), and Dead Astronauts (2019) differs substantially, emphasizing the importance to VanderMeer of spy genres rather than science fiction, and exploring the influence of open-world digital gaming on VanderMeer’s narrative technique. Themes that critics have identified as common to both spy fiction and digital gaming – including knowledge, power, and control – recur in VanderMeer, suggesting that in addition to his philosophical engagement with the “posthuman” or “nonhuman,” he also takes up pressing social and political issues. In particular, I propose that VanderMeer’s novels analyze the relationships between twenty-first-century citizen-subjects and increasingly unaccountable entities like multinational corporations, security agencies, and states. However, VanderMeer’s reading of this “society of control” (Deleuze), seems to lead primarily to melancholic resignation rather than renewed critique. Linking his genre and medium influences, and foregrounding themes which have not been addressed in previous criticism, I show that VanderMeer’s innovations in the novel have produced a post-critical or even post-political form of fiction.

Model Bacaan Anak Berbasis Kearifan Lokal

This paper is generally aimed at generating an innovative multicultural-based learning model that meets the basic educational goals that can be used in schools and madrasah. Multicultural-based learning model in the form of preschool children's reading models, traditional literature, fiction, biography and autobiography, science, poetry and poetry. Reading is based on local wisdom is a reading about the cultural life of the surrounding community or area of education location. Writing a local-based story is an open story of local cultural themes. Local-based education is education that utilizes local and global advantages in economic, arts and cultural aspects, human resources, language, information and communication technology, ecology, etc. into the school curriculum which ultimately benefits the development of competencies of learners that can be utilized for competition global. Local wisdom sources are human potential, religious potential, cultural potential. While the purpose of local wisdom-based education or the advantage of providing knowledge, skills and behavior to learners so that they have a solid insight about the state of the environment and the needs of the community in accordance with the values / rules prevailing in the region and support regional development and national development. While the specific purpose of local wisdom-based education is so that students more familiar with and become more familiar with the natural environment, social, and cultural. Students have the provision of skills and knowledge and knowledge about the area that is useful for themselves as well as the community in general. Students have attitudes and behaviors that are in harmony with the values / rules that apply in the area and preserve and develop the noble values of local culture in order to support regional development and national development.

Alterethnography: Reading and writing otherness in organizations

Inspired by the alternative ethnographic tradition, the aim of this article is to contribute with an approach to organizational ethnography informed by the radical imperative to encounter and understand the Other in his/her complex otherness and difference. The approach is conceptualized in terms of alterethnography and it is outlined as a way of doing research/writing for change at odds with dominant patriarchal scientific writing orders. Illustrated by a study of creativity, written in the form of an academic postmodern detective novel fiction, alterethnography is envisioned as uncontained and disruptive, unpatriarchal and disconformist: it is an approach that transgresses the boundaries of the ego, striving to embrace otherness as togetherness.

Doing Business with Wizards, Spider-Men, and Jedi Knights: Managing Intellectual Property and Fandom in the Experience Economy

The experience economy has taken popular culture and has injected it into every aspect of our lives. We translate movies, TV shows, video games, and other forms of entertainment into our daily activities in the form of fan fiction, events, merchandise, and themed establishments. These activities involve vast amounts of creative content protected by copyright, trademarks, and designs. Rightsholders need to manage these intellectual properties strategically to increase profits while tolerating consumer experiences that do not cause damage to the business. This preserves long-term fan loyalty and immersive patronage.

La post-fantasy: il ciclo letterario Inquisitore Eymerich di Valerio Evangelisti come una realizzazione dell’elemento fantastico tramite la narrazione postmoderna

This article examines the literary series of Inquisitore Eymerich by Valerio Evangelisti, a variegated macronarrative, which, resisting generic classification, introduces innovation to the panorama of contemporary Italian fantasy. Departing from the analysis of the salient features of the series such as intertextuality, hybridization, storiographic metafiction, and transfictionality, the article examines closely the areas of postmodern narration and inquires into the role of the fantastic element in Italian literature. Evangelisti makes the most of postmodern narrative strategies and of fantasy’s ability to penetrate various media in order to provide a tool of critical reflection on human history with an emphasis on the phenomenology of power. By interweaving different literary genres and inviting readers to produce their own interpretations in form of fan fiction, Evangelisti creates a new type of committed narrative, post-fantasy, which presents a new conception of postmodern narrative, one that overcomes the barrier between the literary fiction and the genre fiction.

“His stethoscope, his beard, her breasts”: Narrative Gaps, Automaticity, and the Microfiction of Lydia Davis

What could be the value of a story so short that it would be called “microfiction”? According to Marc Botha, short fiction mirrors “the short attention span of modern readers,” as well as “the gaps and fragmented-ness of modern consciousness.” While microfiction is not necessarily the only form of fiction that engages with cognitive processes, as there is a rich history of describing literary studies such as poetry through the lens of cognitive science. This article explores microfiction’s structure and its relation to cognitive processes. Using 2013 Man Booker Prize-awardee Lydia Davis’s microfiction as a sample oeuvre, applied are a range of cognitive science methodologies—an interdisciplinary approach encompassing psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, artificial intelligence, anthropology, and linguistics—to consider how certain genres of literature mimic and even refract the ways in which the human brain processes information. Putting microfiction as a literary work in dialogue with cognitive processing demonstrates seemingly disparate fields can provide insight into both literature and cognitive science.