The Fictive and the Imaginary

The Fictive and the Imaginary PDF

Author: Wolfgang Iser

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Published: 1993-03-01

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 9780801844980

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The pioneer of "literary anthropology," Wolfgang Iser presents a wide-ranging and comprehensive exploration of this new field in an attempt to explain the human need for the "particular form of make-believe" known as literature. Ranging from the Renaissance pastoral to Coleridge to Sartre and Beckett, The Fictive and the Imaginary is a distinguished work of scholarship from one of Europe's most respected and influential critics.

Fictions

Fictions PDF

Author: Markus Gabriel

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2024-03-12

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1509546626

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From Ancient philosophy to contemporary theories of fiction, it is a common practice to relegate illusory appearances to the realm of the non-existent, like shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave. Contrary to this traditional mode of drawing a metaphysical distinction between reality and fiction, Markus Gabriel argues that the realm of the illusory, fictional, imaginary, and conceptually indeterminate is as real as it gets. Being in touch with reality need not and cannot require that we overcome appearances in order to grasp a meaningless reality which exists ‘out there,’ outside and maybe even beyond our minds. Human mindedness (Geist) exists in the mode of fictions through which we achieve self-consciousness. This novel approach provides a fresh perspective on our existence as subjects who lead their lives in the light of self-conceptions. Fictions also develops a social ontology according to which the social unfolds as a constant renegotiation of dissent, of different points of view onto the same reality. Thus, we cannot ever hope to ground human society in a fiction-free realm of objective transactions. However, this does not mean that truth and reality are somehow outdated concepts. On the contrary, we need to enlarge our conception of reality so that it fully encompasses ourselves as specifically minded social animals. This major new work of philosophy will be of interest to students and scholars throughout the humanities and to anyone interested in contemporary philosophy and social thought.

Prospecting

Prospecting PDF

Author: Wolfgang Iser

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 1993-02

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780801845932

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Reevaluating such time-honored concepts as representation, he sketches out a new play theoryof the text that sees literature as an ongoing enactment of human possibilities.

Towards a 'Natural' Narratology

Towards a 'Natural' Narratology PDF

Author: Monika Fludernik

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-11-01

Total Pages: 543

ISBN-13: 1134802587

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In this ground breaking work of synthesis, Monika Fludernik combines insights from literary theory and linguistics to provide a challenging new theory of narrative. This book is both an historical survey and theoretical study, with the author drawing on an enormous range of examples from the earliest oral study to contemporary experimental fiction. She uses these examples to prove that recent literature, far from heralding the final collapse of narrative, represents the epitome of a centuries long developmental process.

Wolfgang Iser

Wolfgang Iser PDF

Author: Ben De Bruyn

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-05-29

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 3110245523

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Although Wolfgang Iser is one of the most influential literary theorists of the twentieth century, there is no authoritative study about his oeuvre. The present work remedies that problem by analysing Iser’s German and English writings in detail. Apart from being the first comprehensive account of his work, this study also modifies the established view of Iser’s theory. In contrast to the idea that his only contribution to literary studies is the reception theory of the 1970s, this account demonstrates the importance of Iser’s work on history and anthropology from the 1950s and 1990s. Instead of exclusively focusing on familiar terms such as ‘indeterminacy’, this analysis also discusses Iser’s view of modernity, fiction and culture. As this discussion shows, his writings develop a consistent theory of the novel and the way in which it allows its readers to articulate new views of reality. To situate this theory, Iser’s institutional and intellectual background is described as well, paying special attention to the Poetik und Hermeneutik-circle and thinkers like Blumenberg and Kermode. The continued relevance of his theory is demonstrated via comparisons with recent research on the novel and memory as well as examples from contemporary novelists like Juli Zeh and Hilary Mantel.

Thinking Literature across Continents

Thinking Literature across Continents PDF

Author: Ranjan Ghosh

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2016-11-17

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0822373696

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Thinking Literature across Continents finds Ranjan Ghosh and J. Hillis Miller—two thinkers from different continents, cultures, training, and critical perspectives—debating and reflecting upon what literature is and why it matters. Ghosh and Miller do not attempt to formulate a joint theory of literature; rather, they allow their different backgrounds and lively disagreements to stimulate generative dialogue on poetry, world literature, pedagogy, and the ethics of literature. Addressing a varied literary context ranging from Victorian literature, Chinese literary criticism and philosophy, and continental philosophy to Sanskrit poetics and modern European literature, Ghosh offers a transnational theory of literature while Miller emphasizes the need to account for what a text says and how it says it. Thinking Literature across Continents highlights two minds continually discovering new paths of communication and two literary and cultural traditions intersecting in productive and compelling ways.

The Little Crystalline Seed

The Little Crystalline Seed PDF

Author: Iddo Dickmann

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2019-05-31

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1438474016

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Mise en abyme is a term developed from literary theory denoting a work that doubles itself within itself—a story placed within a story or a play within a play. The term flourished in experimental fiction in midcentury France, having not only a strong impact on contemporary literary theory but also on post-structuralist philosophy. The Little Crystalline Seed focuses on how thinkers invoke the concept of mise en abyme in order to establish ontologies that deviate from that of Heidegger. Iddo Dickmann demonstrates how the concept served in modeling Jacques Derrida's logic of supplementarity; Maurice Blanchot's mechanism of désouvrement; Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of repetition; Emmanuel Levinas's concept of "proximity," and in further circuit: the philosophies of Bergson, Kant, Leibniz, Heidegger himself, and more. Exploring the interpretative and generative potential of the mise en abyme for continental thought, Dickmann reveals new points of resonance between various philosophical topics including, aesthetics, ethics, time, logic, mirroring, play, and signification.

The Science Fiction Dimensions of Salman Rushdie

The Science Fiction Dimensions of Salman Rushdie PDF

Author: Yael Maurer

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2014-01-30

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 0786474963

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This book focuses on the science fictional dimensions of Rushdie's later novels, Fury, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Shalimar the Clown and Luka and the Fire of Life, and Rushdie's first unpublished novel, The Antagonist, to show how the author's oeuvre moves towards a more consistent engagement with science fiction as a generic form and an ideological investment. The author demonstrates how Rushdie recreates personal and national histories in a science fictional setting and mode, and contends that the failure of his first novel Grimus may have led Rushdie away from SF for some time, although he returns to it with a much firmer conviction and a much stronger voice in his later novels, showing his commitment to this imaginative form which he describes in Fury as providing "the best popular vehicle ever devised for the novel of ideas and metaphysics."The science fictional mode is the most appropriate vehicle for expressing these thematic and ideological concerns and the organizing feature of Rushdie's oeuvre. The author rereads the later novels in light of recent critical engagement with SF as a vehicle for reimagining national histories and as a potentially subversive tool for social and political engagement in a fictional realm.

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