ABSTRACT:In this article, we introduce chrononarratology as a programmatic term for a way of “doing” narratology that addresses some of the major challenges and tendencies of narrative theory. Chrononarratology builds on and takes seriously the increasing interest in historical and diachronic approaches to narrative within narratology in recent years. We begin by offering a meta-analysis of what exactly narratologists have been engaged in when they use the labels “historical” and “diachronic” narratology. The results of our meta-analysis mark the starting point for outlining chrononarratology as a framework. Chrononarratology offers a perspective that can inform narratological work in all its theoretical paradigms. It invites narratology to take into account historical change and the importance of narrative’s situatedness and calls for collaborations between scholars working on different periods. In order to arrive at chrononarratology, one does not have to change the materials one works with, but approach them with a deeper historical awareness. We conclude with a list of reflective questions for those who wish to make their own approach more chrononarratological.
{"title":"Chrononarratology: Modelling Historical Change for Narratology","authors":"Dorothee Birke, Eva von Contzen, Karin Kukkonen","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0001","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In this article, we introduce chrononarratology as a programmatic term for a way of “doing” narratology that addresses some of the major challenges and tendencies of narrative theory. Chrononarratology builds on and takes seriously the increasing interest in historical and diachronic approaches to narrative within narratology in recent years. We begin by offering a meta-analysis of what exactly narratologists have been engaged in when they use the labels “historical” and “diachronic” narratology. The results of our meta-analysis mark the starting point for outlining chrononarratology as a framework. Chrononarratology offers a perspective that can inform narratological work in all its theoretical paradigms. It invites narratology to take into account historical change and the importance of narrative’s situatedness and calls for collaborations between scholars working on different periods. In order to arrive at chrononarratology, one does not have to change the materials one works with, but approach them with a deeper historical awareness. We conclude with a list of reflective questions for those who wish to make their own approach more chrononarratological.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"26 - 46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47967358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:This essay intervenes in the largely diachronic assumptions of seriality studies by proposing a method called “synchronic reading,” in which readers might consume parts of different texts at the same time. While synchronic reading was an historical practice for Victorians, as a contemporary method it has historiographic and literary/interpretive implications. Historically, the essay attempts, with the usual caveats, to reconstruct what a Victorian reader might have done in, say, January of 1860 when parts of various serialized novels came out in temporal proximity to each other although with different rhythms of publication. The historiographic aspects of the method allow us to think about the differences between diachronic and synchronic axes of histories in terms of scale, accessibility, and relation to geography. On the level of literary analysis, synchronic reading allows us to think of texts, and particularly the Victorian novel, in different ways—not as finished wholes or even as accretive parts moving inexorably toward an ending, but as fragments of texts in conversation with other texts in an extended narrative middle. The article takes up all these issues through three thought experiments that emphasize the differences synchronic reading might make in understanding character types, lexicon, and genre.
{"title":"Synchronic Reading","authors":"H. Michie, Robyn R. Warhol","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0000","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This essay intervenes in the largely diachronic assumptions of seriality studies by proposing a method called “synchronic reading,” in which readers might consume parts of different texts at the same time. While synchronic reading was an historical practice for Victorians, as a contemporary method it has historiographic and literary/interpretive implications. Historically, the essay attempts, with the usual caveats, to reconstruct what a Victorian reader might have done in, say, January of 1860 when parts of various serialized novels came out in temporal proximity to each other although with different rhythms of publication. The historiographic aspects of the method allow us to think about the differences between diachronic and synchronic axes of histories in terms of scale, accessibility, and relation to geography. On the level of literary analysis, synchronic reading allows us to think of texts, and particularly the Victorian novel, in different ways—not as finished wholes or even as accretive parts moving inexorably toward an ending, but as fragments of texts in conversation with other texts in an extended narrative middle. The article takes up all these issues through three thought experiments that emphasize the differences synchronic reading might make in understanding character types, lexicon, and genre.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"1 - 25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48765567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:The role of AI in narrative studies is not a question of if but of when and of how we humans prepare for such a future. The if claim is addressed with a detailed rebuttal to Angus Fletcher’s ‘Why Computers Will Never Read (or Write) Literature.” A counter-argument based upon key AI concepts, the historical progress of AI, and landmark failures and breakthroughs brings readers up to date on the current state of AI as it relates to narrative studies. Numerous examples explain why the cycle of AI winters and springs is now broken, and there is a new global AI arms race. Scholars now have a windfall of increasingly sophisticated, multi-million dollar models that can analyze and generate narrative. Still, in light of the inherent complexity of natural language and the current limitations of even these state-of-the-art AI models, a human-in-the-loop is essential for the foreseeable future. We attempt to allay common yet misplaced concerns by reasserting the centrality of the human scholar to guide and interpret while using these tools. Leveraging these new AI models will yield new insights for narrative studies, and this important work will include shaping the language of fairness, equality, and ethics of models that increasingly impact the lives of billions. We invite narrative scholars to participate in this growing interdisciplinary movement that chooses active engagement over passive critique.
{"title":"What the Rise of AI Means for Narrative Studies: A Response to “Why Computers Will Never Read (or Write) Literature” by Angus Fletcher","authors":"Jon Chun, Katherine Elkins","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0005","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The role of AI in narrative studies is not a question of if but of when and of how we humans prepare for such a future. The if claim is addressed with a detailed rebuttal to Angus Fletcher’s ‘Why Computers Will Never Read (or Write) Literature.” A counter-argument based upon key AI concepts, the historical progress of AI, and landmark failures and breakthroughs brings readers up to date on the current state of AI as it relates to narrative studies. Numerous examples explain why the cycle of AI winters and springs is now broken, and there is a new global AI arms race. Scholars now have a windfall of increasingly sophisticated, multi-million dollar models that can analyze and generate narrative. Still, in light of the inherent complexity of natural language and the current limitations of even these state-of-the-art AI models, a human-in-the-loop is essential for the foreseeable future. We attempt to allay common yet misplaced concerns by reasserting the centrality of the human scholar to guide and interpret while using these tools. Leveraging these new AI models will yield new insights for narrative studies, and this important work will include shaping the language of fairness, equality, and ethics of models that increasingly impact the lives of billions. We invite narrative scholars to participate in this growing interdisciplinary movement that chooses active engagement over passive critique.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"104 - 113"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42986398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:In this article, I would like to discuss whether recent interest in human interactions may facilitate the long-standing debates on second-person narratives, and help to go beyond an official list of controversies or questions about this ambiguous literary form. Here, I introduce the method of reconceptualizing second-person narrative inspired by social cognitive research, including some empirical findings from social neuroscience. It may be a step towards an enactive theory of second-person narrative. This approach includes an explanation of subjectivity inscribed in that narrative form (“an interacting dyad”); redefinition of second-person narratives in terms of interaction, cooperation, and social event; and remodeling of the ethics and pragmatics of this form as narrative reenactment. Such a conceptualization may explain the current role of the second person in social and interactive media that has given rise to the empowered and directly engaged “you” user.
{"title":"Enactive, Interactive, Social—New Contexts for Reading Second-Person Narration","authors":"M. Rembowska-Płuciennik","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0003","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In this article, I would like to discuss whether recent interest in human interactions may facilitate the long-standing debates on second-person narratives, and help to go beyond an official list of controversies or questions about this ambiguous literary form. Here, I introduce the method of reconceptualizing second-person narrative inspired by social cognitive research, including some empirical findings from social neuroscience. It may be a step towards an enactive theory of second-person narrative. This approach includes an explanation of subjectivity inscribed in that narrative form (“an interacting dyad”); redefinition of second-person narratives in terms of interaction, cooperation, and social event; and remodeling of the ethics and pragmatics of this form as narrative reenactment. Such a conceptualization may explain the current role of the second person in social and interactive media that has given rise to the empowered and directly engaged “you” user.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"67 - 84"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46235720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:What if we aren’t just the stories we tell about ourselves? What if our identity also involves something beyond any possible narrative—something, indeed, that needs protecting from narrative? If so, then it might seem as though a sequential account of our memories is beside the point; yet under some circumstances, surprisingly, a sequential account of our memories is precisely what protects us best. That’s arguably what The Periodic Table does for Primo Levi: while this stunningly unusual generic hybrid preserves the full force and magnitude of Levi’s experience in the camps, it also situates that experience on the same level as other events, thus preventing it from taking over completely. Rather than giving us, through content, the story of Levi’s life, its main function is to express, through form, the depths of his character, something that remains constant across all circumstances. It thus represents a heroic refusal on Levi’s part to let the Holocaust define him, to let others deprive him of his individuality, to let the diachronic dominate. It saved his self from stories. Did it also, perhaps, keep him alive a little longer?
{"title":"Saving the Self from Stories: Resistance to Narrative in Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table","authors":"J. Landy","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0004","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:What if we aren’t just the stories we tell about ourselves? What if our identity also involves something beyond any possible narrative—something, indeed, that needs protecting from narrative? If so, then it might seem as though a sequential account of our memories is beside the point; yet under some circumstances, surprisingly, a sequential account of our memories is precisely what protects us best. That’s arguably what The Periodic Table does for Primo Levi: while this stunningly unusual generic hybrid preserves the full force and magnitude of Levi’s experience in the camps, it also situates that experience on the same level as other events, thus preventing it from taking over completely. Rather than giving us, through content, the story of Levi’s life, its main function is to express, through form, the depths of his character, something that remains constant across all circumstances. It thus represents a heroic refusal on Levi’s part to let the Holocaust define him, to let others deprive him of his individuality, to let the diachronic dominate. It saved his self from stories. Did it also, perhaps, keep him alive a little longer?","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"103 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47286204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:In response to questions about the author’s previous proof (in Narrative 29.1) that computers contain a hardware limit that renders them permanently incapable of reading or writing narrative, this article draws upon the author’s work with Deep Neural Networks, Judea Pearl’s do-calculus, GPT-3, and other current-generation AI to logically demonstrate that no computer AI (quantum or otherwise) has ever learned, or will ever learn, to produce or process novels or any other kind of narrative (including scripts, short fiction, political speeches, business plans, scientific hypotheses, technology proposals, military strategies, and plots to take over the world).
{"title":"Why Computer AI Will Never Do What We Imagine It Can","authors":"Angus Fletcher","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0006","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In response to questions about the author’s previous proof (in Narrative 29.1) that computers contain a hardware limit that renders them permanently incapable of reading or writing narrative, this article draws upon the author’s work with Deep Neural Networks, Judea Pearl’s do-calculus, GPT-3, and other current-generation AI to logically demonstrate that no computer AI (quantum or otherwise) has ever learned, or will ever learn, to produce or process novels or any other kind of narrative (including scripts, short fiction, political speeches, business plans, scientific hypotheses, technology proposals, military strategies, and plots to take over the world).","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"114 - 137"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48651629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:In an article published in Narrative in 2004, Jonathan Culler rejected the concept of omniscience and called for a more fitting critical lexicon to replace it. But so far, this call remains largely unanswered. This essay seeks to provide such a replacement, but it aims to do so by maintaining a concept of superior knowledge, which can be defined as knowledge that could not typically be known by either a narrator of nonfiction or a fictional character. Superior knowledge has an unmistakable utility, one that can provide insight into authors' rhetorical strategies, specifically because, unlike omniscience, it does not purport to be all-encompassing. The model that this essay proposes argues that authors grant narrators access to different types and degrees of superior knowledge based on a principle of relevance. In addition to variance in the degree of access, the type of superior knowledge to which a narrator might have access falls into one of three categories: knowledge of characters and events (including interior thoughts), temporality, and spatiality. This essay, in addition to exploring the concepts of omniscience, superior knowledge, and narratorial access in theoretical terms, will look at how access to superior knowledge is employed in the following texts: Ian McEwan's Atonement, Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain," Robert Coover's "Going for a Beer," Edwidge Danticat's "Sunrise, Sunset," and Charles Yu's "Fable." The overall goal of this essay is to show the narratological benefit of the model of narratorial access to superior knowledge as a replacement for omniscience.
{"title":"Replacing Omniscience: Superior Knowledge and Narratorial Access","authors":"Annjeanette Wiese","doi":"10.1353/nar.2021.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2021.0020","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In an article published in Narrative in 2004, Jonathan Culler rejected the concept of omniscience and called for a more fitting critical lexicon to replace it. But so far, this call remains largely unanswered. This essay seeks to provide such a replacement, but it aims to do so by maintaining a concept of superior knowledge, which can be defined as knowledge that could not typically be known by either a narrator of nonfiction or a fictional character. Superior knowledge has an unmistakable utility, one that can provide insight into authors' rhetorical strategies, specifically because, unlike omniscience, it does not purport to be all-encompassing. The model that this essay proposes argues that authors grant narrators access to different types and degrees of superior knowledge based on a principle of relevance. In addition to variance in the degree of access, the type of superior knowledge to which a narrator might have access falls into one of three categories: knowledge of characters and events (including interior thoughts), temporality, and spatiality. This essay, in addition to exploring the concepts of omniscience, superior knowledge, and narratorial access in theoretical terms, will look at how access to superior knowledge is employed in the following texts: Ian McEwan's Atonement, Tobias Wolff's \"Bullet in the Brain,\" Robert Coover's \"Going for a Beer,\" Edwidge Danticat's \"Sunrise, Sunset,\" and Charles Yu's \"Fable.\" The overall goal of this essay is to show the narratological benefit of the model of narratorial access to superior knowledge as a replacement for omniscience.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"29 1","pages":"321 - 338"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49243665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:Popular music often seems alien to literature's formal explorations and concerns. Existing studies on literature and pop music have mostly focused on ideological and political aspects derived from plot elements, but have discounted the possibility of technical or compositional influence. One may wonder what trace, if any, this ubiquitous music has left, besides being present or mentioned in the storyline. Has it provided literature with any significant narrative models? These are the questions that this article tries to answer. To do so, I first introduce the relevant framework of music and literature studies, propose the notion of a musical superstructure, offer a definition and elaborate on its main features, and then refer to several literary works where it can be found. Finally, I expand on the main narrative consequences that using a musical superstructure may have, such as lacking a sense of direction, restarting the story with each chapter, or infusing structure and form with the thematic concerns that a novel addresses. Rooted firmly in previous studies in music and literature, the idea of "musical superstructure" is a novel tool for understanding pop music within literary fiction, binding together rich and diverse structural models that literature has developed and will keep expanding upon.
{"title":"Stories like CDs: Musical Superstructures as Narrative Devices","authors":"Rodrigo Guijarro Lasheras","doi":"10.1353/nar.2021.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2021.0018","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Popular music often seems alien to literature's formal explorations and concerns. Existing studies on literature and pop music have mostly focused on ideological and political aspects derived from plot elements, but have discounted the possibility of technical or compositional influence. One may wonder what trace, if any, this ubiquitous music has left, besides being present or mentioned in the storyline. Has it provided literature with any significant narrative models? These are the questions that this article tries to answer. To do so, I first introduce the relevant framework of music and literature studies, propose the notion of a musical superstructure, offer a definition and elaborate on its main features, and then refer to several literary works where it can be found. Finally, I expand on the main narrative consequences that using a musical superstructure may have, such as lacking a sense of direction, restarting the story with each chapter, or infusing structure and form with the thematic concerns that a novel addresses. Rooted firmly in previous studies in music and literature, the idea of \"musical superstructure\" is a novel tool for understanding pop music within literary fiction, binding together rich and diverse structural models that literature has developed and will keep expanding upon.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"29 1","pages":"396 - 412"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45289038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:Digital storytelling techniques and persuasive communications are becoming increasingly intertwined and realized in cultural discourses such as cultural heritage, environmental activism, and politics. Rhetorical theory has grounded and influenced communication practice since the age of oration, and as society is increasingly undergoing new mediatization, digital rhetorical theory can be reexamined and applied to nonfiction digital narratives for improved practice. Narratology provides key theoretical foundations that are braided into digital rhetoric for application to digital nonfiction narratives. This article highlights how new media has changed the impacts of the modes of persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos) on today's multimedia-consuming audiences and how the classical rhetorical canons (invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and memory) can be reframed and updated by incorporating narrative theory to aid creators of new nonfiction digital narratives across different genres.
{"title":"New Media Ecology and Theoretical Foundations for Nonfiction Digital Narrative Creative Practice","authors":"N. Basaraba, Peter Arnds, J. Edmond, Owen Conlan","doi":"10.1353/nar.2021.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2021.0017","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Digital storytelling techniques and persuasive communications are becoming increasingly intertwined and realized in cultural discourses such as cultural heritage, environmental activism, and politics. Rhetorical theory has grounded and influenced communication practice since the age of oration, and as society is increasingly undergoing new mediatization, digital rhetorical theory can be reexamined and applied to nonfiction digital narratives for improved practice. Narratology provides key theoretical foundations that are braided into digital rhetoric for application to digital nonfiction narratives. This article highlights how new media has changed the impacts of the modes of persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos) on today's multimedia-consuming audiences and how the classical rhetorical canons (invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and memory) can be reframed and updated by incorporating narrative theory to aid creators of new nonfiction digital narratives across different genres.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"29 1","pages":"374 - 395"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42446557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:In our future-oriented era, future visions have become increasingly important for shaping policy and public awareness. How is fictionality as a rhetorical mode used in non-literary future visions, and how are signposts of fiction instrumental—or detrimental—to conveying pathways to the future, in view of forecasted environmental devastation and radical climate change? How does the temporal mode of the scenario (which, describing the future, has as yet has no truth-value in the actual world) complicate our thinking of fictionality? This article examines fictionality in a selection of non-literary narratives of future catastrophe: The Effects of Nuclear War (1979), Storms of My Grandchildren (2009), The End of Western Civilization (2014), and The Water Will Come (2017). I develop the idea of "fraught fictionality" to denote the kind of uneasy fictionality found in future scenarios, burdened by its inclusion within a textual genre that is geared toward policy-making and anticipation.
{"title":"Fraught Fictionality in Narratives of Future Catastrophe","authors":"L. Ameel","doi":"10.1353/nar.2021.0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2021.0022","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In our future-oriented era, future visions have become increasingly important for shaping policy and public awareness. How is fictionality as a rhetorical mode used in non-literary future visions, and how are signposts of fiction instrumental—or detrimental—to conveying pathways to the future, in view of forecasted environmental devastation and radical climate change? How does the temporal mode of the scenario (which, describing the future, has as yet has no truth-value in the actual world) complicate our thinking of fictionality? This article examines fictionality in a selection of non-literary narratives of future catastrophe: The Effects of Nuclear War (1979), Storms of My Grandchildren (2009), The End of Western Civilization (2014), and The Water Will Come (2017). I develop the idea of \"fraught fictionality\" to denote the kind of uneasy fictionality found in future scenarios, burdened by its inclusion within a textual genre that is geared toward policy-making and anticipation.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"29 1","pages":"355 - 373"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42534639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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