Abstract In this paper I use contemporary theories of fiction in order to show that the fiction- as-travel, and especially fiction-as-flight metaphor is used by Lucian as a metafictional signal. Whereas this metaphor has been studied in other metaliterary significations, it may be used to understand Lucian’s conceptions of fiction in texts that explicitly tackle story-telling and lying. Indeed, celestial travels are part and parcel of the structure and themes in these texts. Flight illustrates the acts of telling and listening to a fictional story. Insofar as they lead to faraway lands, aerial movements are metaphors for the access granted by fiction to possible worlds. But celestial travels are particularly speedy, just like fictional immersion must be immediate. The nature of fictional immersion is problematised by flying characters who lose sight of planet Earth. The fall down to Earth is therefore used to illustrate the end of fictional illusion and narrative.

This article analyses the early works of V. B. Shklovsky, specifically the 1921 book Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and the Theory of the Novel, which responded to the socio-political situation during the Civil War and the NEP in an extremely mediated and therefore legal form. It also analyses the autobiographical Sentimental Journey. Shklovsky singles out Sterne’s prose with “stopped time” in the continuous flow of world classics. He perceives play as a significant device, and together with the stoppage of time, it is interpreted by him as a revelation. This revelation is seen as a salvation of the creative personality from the threats of the era. Shklovsky’s personality and theory were met with divergent perceptions among his contemporaries. To provide a comprehensive characterisation of the scholar’s worldview and activities, the author of the article refers to the images of the characters from the novels The White Guard by M. A. Bulgakov and Chevengur by A. P. Platonov, for which Shklovsky served as the prototype. The literary scholar’s thoughts on “defamiliarisation” in the novel genre and on the slowing down of time found a wide response in European literary studies and gave impetus to the emergence of postmodernist theories of fiction. More particularly, the concept of “performative writing” can be traced back to his early works. In the 1960s and 1970s, Shklovsky’s participation in European philological discussions and visits to editorial offices and universities in Italy and France were regarded by the public as important events. Shklovsky’s method, traditionally called formal, became an integral part of Umberto Eco’s system of creative thinking and was used by him in the structure of the novel and literary theory. The text of his The Name of the Rose is permeated with the idea of denying haste in matters of conscience and religion and the slow execution of supreme justice. In Foucault’s Pendulum, the reference to “the Petersburg of Shklovsky’s youth” is significant. The pendulum, with its motionless stand, serves as a symbol for the passage of time from a state of immobility.

This paper conducts a textual analysis of the animated comedic web miniseries Box Peek, analysing it as a general parody of transmedial gaming franchises, particularly the Pokémon TV series. The show features the fictional game of Box Peek, which is used as a device to not only provide drama and motivation for the show’s characters, but also to parody the games and associated conceits that are central to these franchises, often for the sake of humour. This discussion makes use of theories of fiction and parody, cultural analyses of Pokémon and children’s media, as well as Box Peek’s creator’s own commentary to understand how fictional[ised] games create meaning for an audience. It concludes having discussed two major threads of analysis. The first concerning the rules of the game, which implies questions of strategy and technology, which eventually concerns fictional world-building, exploiting the fictional and ludic inconsistencies that exist in transmedial game franchises for humour. The second is the way in which Box Peek, after formally parodying shows like Pokémon, then extends this parody by answering the questions it raises. In so doing it is argued that Box Peek is simultaneously imitating the childlike tone of Pokémon before progressing to a more reflective, adult perspective on the enjoyment of these series by the audience themselves. This leads the (presumed millennial) audience to a retrospective self-assessment of how, now in adulthood, they regard transmedial gaming franchises of their childhood in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Abstract This article explores Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff through Ursula K. Le Guin's The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction emphasizing its subversion of traditional Western genre conventions. Reichardt reimagines the pioneer journey as one of ambiguity and collective struggle, focusing on marginalized perspectives and everyday labor rather than heroic conquest. Employing a slow-cinema aesthetic, the film critiques settler-colonial narratives and amplifies the voices of women and the more-than-human world. Through an interdisciplinary lens, this study examines how Meek's Cutoff functions as a counter-history, interrogating the genre's nationalist and patriarchal underpinnings. The findings highlight the potential of cinematic form to foster feminist and ecological ethics, challenging dominant storytelling paradigms while offering space for alternative narratives and embodied experiences.

This article traces the relation of plasticity, ontology, and responsibility in Anthropocene novels by Ursula K. Le Guin, J.G. Ballard, William Gibson, and Ruth Ozeki. Reimagining Le Guin’s “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” as “The Plastic Bag Theory of Fiction” reveals Anthropocene fiction’s “plastic” resources – its play with form and language, the troping of space and temporality, its metafictional reflections on the narrative itself – to illuminate and problematize an ontological contradiction adhering to the term “Anthropocene.” Philosopher Catherine Malabou argues that conflating human-and/as-geological history creates an ontological rift, a “self-alienation” allowing for the “slumber of responsibility itself.” Narrative figurations of contradiction are rife in Anthropocene fiction: “narrative plasticity markers” register the accumulative ambitions of global capitalism as “the garbage heap of History,” while reflecting back the (self-)alienated subject of “anthropocenic history” through hauntings of long-forgotten memories, ghosts and shape-shifters, and alternate or hidden histories.

In this article, I offer a reading of Wanuri Kahiu’s short film Pumzi (2009), which depicts the aftermath of a devastating water crisis that forced human communities in East Africa underground in order to survive. Following scholars such as Ritch Calvin, Kirk Bryan Sides, or Mich Nyawalo, who have dissected the film in the context of its treatment of environmental issues and its Africanfuturist leanings, I aim to foreground the function of the body in the film, identifying the peculiar nature of Maitu community’s displacement (vertical rather than lateral, confining them to a space which cuts them off from the environment) as the reason for the rise of new forms of bodily exploitation. In my reading of the film, I want to argue that the corporeal hierarchies established within the community facilitate the emergence of what I term “fuelling bodies”, forcibly turned by the authoritarian governing body into sources of energy as the last existing natural resource to be exploited. Drawing on the theory of science fiction, Hagar Kotef’s writing on movement, and postcolonial theory, I close-read the film to explore the relationship it establishes between displacement and the bodily hierarchies that exist in the community. In turn, I argue that the nature of the Maitu community’s displacement gives rise to hindered freedom of movement, bodily oppression, and loss of communal ties and consequently prevents the community from addressing the legacy of the climate crisis, which has arrested them in stasis, leaving them unable to dream of better futures. As I demonstrate, it is only once Asha rejects and actively rebels against the imposed inhibitions of movement and leaves the spaces of containment that make up the Maitu community that she can realise the utopian post-apocalyptic process of renewal and rejuvenation, both for the natural environment and the human communities.

This study examines the aspirations for national reconstruction and the rise to a great power through scientific advancement, focusing on Han Nak-won’s science fiction The Lost Boy(1959) and Hwang Jung-sang’s mid-length science fiction Blue Ears of Grain(1988). Following the Korean War, South Korea sought to rebuild its devastated nation and envisioned a path to becoming a powerful country through science and technology. Institutionally, efforts were made to foster interest in science among children and adolescents, utilizing it as a tool for modernization and progress. This enthusiasm for a science-driven nation stemmed from witnessing the impact of nuclear weapons that ended World War II. The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union post-World War II was closely tied to nuclear weapons development, influencing South Korea’s scientific ambitions. In South Korea, science fiction evolved as an educational and ideological tool aimed at young readers. With the onset of the Cold War and the prominence of anti-communist ideology, science fiction no longer remained a realm of mere imagination but became a means to inspire youth towards national reconstruction and scientific advancement. Han Nak-won, a major writer of children’s and adolescent science fiction, actively contributed to scientific discourse beyond fiction, emphasizing the crucial role of science in postwar Korea’s national restoration and advancement. His works particularly addressed nuclear technology, reflecting the socio-political climate of the time, in which nuclear power was a symbol of global dominance. Meanwhile, North Korea institutionalized science fiction as a means of ideological education. Hwang Jung-sang presented a systematic theory of science fiction in The Creation of Science Fantasy Literature(1993). While North Korean science fiction fundamentally focuses on human themes, it also serves as a medium to highlight the nation’s scientific and technological superiority, reinforcing its status as a scientific power. This study explores South and North Korea’s perspectives on science and their aspirations for national strength through scientific advancement, as reflected in The Lost Boyand Blue Ears of Grain. Despite the historical gap between the two works, with one marking the beginning of the Cold War and the other its end, analyzing their approaches to science during this period contributes significantly to the study of Korean science fiction.

Este article exposa una metodologia de treball que s'escriu seguint la pista del grafisme revolucionari del passat amb el propòsit d'obrir altres començaments en el present. Per a això, es partix d'una investigació en curs que analitza la producció gràfica impresa dels grups activistes de la dissidència sexual i de gènere en l'Estat espanyol en un marc temporal que abasta des de la dècada dels setanta fins als dos mil. La metodologia descrita busca desestabilitzar els valors prioritaris de la disciplina acadèmica del disseny gràfic i, en conseqüència, considerarà pràctiques de recuperació de memòries, processos i històries desateses o considerades menors. Fent referència a la teoria de la bossa de la ficció de Ursula K. Leguin, la metodologia descrita és recol·lectora. Es tracta d'un procés que mira cap als màrgens i que és capaç d'articular narratives no lineals que oscil·len entre la realitat i la ficció. Es planteja una reflexió entorn del recipient com una metàfora per a imaginar un espai on el treball de recol·lecta puga tindre lloc. Es proposa un tabaque, un contenidor de vímet construït amb tècniques vernacles que té un passat local, una caixa de ferramentes sostinguda per mans no expertes. El text emprén un camí cap al desaprenentatge disciplinari que s'inicia amb l'activació d'altres sabers i valors contraris als que fan defallir el desig i la seua creativitat.

ABSTRACTThe artefactual theory of fiction holds that fictional characters are abstract and created artefacts like money and nations. One of its main proponents, Amie Thomasson, holds that fictional characters are ontologically dependent on a particular author or authors (rigid historical dependence) for their origin and on literary works for continued existence (generic constant dependence). While there have been objections to Thomasson's position, both the dependencies are dogmas held among artefactualists and the criticisms haven't yet systematically undermined them. In this paper, I argue against these two dependency claims by citing counterexamples, especially from a Twin Homer case, Fission Fiction case, No Man's Sky, a computer game, where an algorithm creates a character and in another instance, by showing how we humans actually create characters. If my arguments are sound, then a realist like Thomasson has no option to make sense of the data they set up for their theory apart from accepting Everett and Schroeder's theory that fictional characters are ideas. In the light of this, I set up a new criterion for the continued existence of fictional characters wherein they're ideas.

The Majapahit Empire has been a source of inspiration for writers of historical fiction, such as Gigrey with his novel Mada. Unfortunately, these historical fictions have the possibility to make readers experience misunderstanding in comprehending history. Therefore, this study aimed to reveal to what extent historical deviation can be considered as creativity and not deviation and whether it can be considered a deviation when the writer develops the history excessively. This study employed a descriptive-qualitative method and used Lindbald's theory of historical fiction for analyzing the data. The result shows that there is a historical narrative that can be categorized as creativity because it is so imaginative and does not trap readers in false history. Meanwhile, one form of creative change in the novel that traps can be seen when Nertaja is told as Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi's adopted son. Because of these creative changes, many readers are trapped in a false history as evidenced by the comments on Goodreads. This is exacerbated by promotional narratives about the author's extensive research, making common reader even more trapped in the falsehood.

The purpose of the article is to apply a folkloristic approach to understand psychoanalysis’s genesis, canon and function. The situation of a psychoanalytic session is viewed as a communicative event of a special kind, in many ways analogous to the relationship between the folklorist and the narrator. This approach allows us to compare psychological and folklore concepts: narrative authenticity, authorship, genre, literariness and parody. It is shown that the analysand, like the folklore performer, is not its author, but its performer. In this case, the function of the psychoanalyst realized in therapy turns out to be dual: in the course of a session he works as a folklorist, and in personal therapy, using secondary folklore, he becomes a narrator. Using the example of the psychoanalytic understanding of the Oedipus complex, it is shown how the psychoanalytic plot displaces the Sophoclean plot, becoming a part of fiction, the denotation of which is not the truth or falsity, but only its meaning. The thesis is put forward according to which psychoanalytic literature, in its content and functioning, is both a theory of psychoanalysis and fiction. In this vein, its genre can be defined as a medical legend.

This article posits a new model for the narrative theory of early fiction that does not presuppose that authors were trying to write the kind of realist novel that became prominent a century later. Some writers from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries use the terms plot and fable in distinct and distinctive ways, with fable naming a broader concept not requiring plot. In this article, the author uses the period’s concept of fable to argue that in some works with loose or puzzling structures, the authors prioritized fable over plot. Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (1688), Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), and Eliza Haywood’s Love in Excess (1719) are examples of fictions that succeed as fables.

The paper presents an alternative approach to substantiating the existence of the legal fiction institution in theory and practice. The approach is based on a critical analysis of modern ideas about the theory of legal fictions. Authors investigate the essence of legal fictions and propose a new definition, which enables us to comprehend the role of fictions in criminal law from a new perspective.

This article argues that Eliza Haywood’s novella Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze (1725) presents a theory of fiction in its diegesis rather than in metafictional reflections. In other words, the protagonist engages in world-building actions—constructing a secret plot with a specific setting and a cast of different personas—that reveal the novella’s form to be evidence for the content of its theory. Resisting the critical tendency to read Fantomina as evidence for its historical context or as characteristic of a primitive stage in the novel’s rise, the author contends that the novella’s episodic, atemporal conception of fiction provides a model after which critics may construct more varied, maze-like, histories of the novel.

This paper is part of a study on the literary discourse of this period, which was shaped by a series of discussions on the novel after the rediscovery of the novel from the values of the times in modern China. Therefore, this paper examines the possibility of establishing a representative 'general theory of the novel' to oversee the literary discourse of modern China amidst a series of discussions to build a modern Chinese literary theory. To this end, this study examines the main theses of Guan, Da-Ru and Lü, Si-Mian's theses, using 『Shosetsu Shinzui(小說神髓)』 as a representative modern literary theory work in Japan, and Guan Da-Ru(管達如)'s ｢Shuo xiaoshuo(說小說｣ and Lü, Si-Mian(呂思勉)'s ｢Xiaoshuo conghua(小說叢話)｣ as comparable Chinese fiction theses. First, we compare the categories of discussion between ｢Shuo xiaoshuo(說小說)｣ and ｢Xiaoshuo conghua(小說叢話)｣, and then examine the themes of 『Shosetsu Shinzui(小說神髓)』 for reference. The main themes of both Guan, Da-Ru and Lü, Si-Mian's papers, namely the nature, typology, and creation of the novel, are then analyzed in terms of the synthesis and limitations of the existing discourse. In conclusion, the paper discusses the status and significance of ｢Shuo xiaoshuo(說小說)｣, ｢Xiaoshuo conghua(小說叢話)｣ as a comprehensive theory of modern Chinese fiction.

The discourse of the speculative in African literature is a growing area of interest in postcolonial studies. Whilst extant literatures have interrogated a good number of African speculative fictions to examine their conventions, styles, and presentations of the speculative in such narratives, critical attention has not been given to a comparative mode that examines inventions, re-inventions and applications of varying strands of imagination stemming from within the spectra of myths and science fiction, and this is what this study attempts to unpack. In the study, the works of two writers of Nigerian descent, Amos Tutuola and Nnedi Okorafor, and their unique applications of the hues of virtual, visual, and concrete imaginaries on the canvas of speculative expressiveness, are our focus. Drawing insights from the theory of speculative fiction, the study analyzes comparative and textual modes, the speculative tenors in Amos Tutola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1946), My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954) and in Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death (2010) and Lagoon (2014), randomly selecting excerpts from different segments of the novels which constitute the data. The data are then subjected to critical analysis through thematic codes to unpack how the speculative are brought to the fore through intertextuality, and how the writers relate in influence, conviction, individual style, context and application of different depths of verisimilitude.

Abstract Terms like “possible worlds”, “erzählte Welten”, “fiktive Welten” are nowadays frequently used as substitutes for Gérard Genette´s term “diegesis”. What one could call “world theory” (by subsuming the fairly different attempts to think story worlds since the emergence of Possible Worlds Theory) has maintained close ties to other branches of research, especially the theory of fictionality. In posing four crucial questions that concern the narratological use of the concept “world”, the paper tries to point out new territories which further discussions about narrative worlds could expand on. In doing so, the paper also gives hints for theoretical revisions or designates areas in which a change in function of the concept “world” could proof useful or is apparently already about to emerge.

Hobbes, Pufendorf, and the Fictional Theory of the State

This study aims to analyze the main themes in the story, such as the struggle for justice, assertiveness, and honesty, as well as to understand the internal conflict experienced by the main character, Nara, and her interactions with other characters such as her mother and the police. The data collection technique was conducted through literary text analysis, in which the data found were identified and recorded. This study aims to identify and analyze the theme of the struggle in seeking justice for the main character in the short story Jalan Buntu, understand internal conflicts, examine moral and social values through intrinsic elements. The method of analysis used is descriptive qualitative, with analysis of the theory and assessment of fiction according to Burhan Nurgiyantoro. The data analyzed includes the definition of intrinsic elements, important quotes from the story, and analysis of each quote of events in the story. This study reveals that the story 'Jalan Buntu' shows the depiction of a brave and firm character in upholding justice. Despite facing many obstacles and pressures, Nara remains firm on the principles of justice and refuses to settle unfair cases, reflecting strong values of honesty and justice. Based on the results of the analysis of the short story Jalan Buntu, it shows that Nara, as the main character, fights for justice despite facing various obstacles, rejects unfair settlement offers, and reflects the values of honesty and courage.

Life stories, fables and narrative songs or carols recorded in Mărișel village, Cluj county, are knitted through the yarns of fictional mechanisms. When it comes to narrations articulated into an informal system of folk mythology, in which the interviewed respondents conjure events with supernatural beings (Saint Friday, the forest lady, wolves’ stir, ogres or poltergeists) which happened to them or which were told by other people, I preferred instead of a morphological classification, or a genre theory (fairytale, legend, myths or short stories), a classification based on theories of fiction. Life stories and fables from the region of Mărișel village, form a spoken historical radiography of rural sub‑zones of the named region, made of our respondents’ perspective. The two epic components that fall under analysis are autobiographical stories (from within a certain area) and mythological‑fictional stories (articulated in a prolix system of folk mythology). Without holding the claim of composing a unified theory on fairytale and myths origin, Bogdan Neagota, the anthropological scholar, presents, as an assumption, the concept of fictional, not historical anteriority of mental records about myth or fairytale, in regards to three levels of fiction, mental records of 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree. Therefore, mental records appear as a main epic genre which, in different cultural contexts, being subjected to isomorphical processes of fictional alteration and formalisation, suffer a series of successive changes, becoming legend, fairytale or myth. It moves from the position of experiential object into fictional object, just as Toma Pavel notes, or ideally, as Culianu claims, it completely transforms its fictional condition. From this perspective, we can deduce the possible hypothesis that some myths or fairytales refer to the experience of reality with fundamental value.