Imaginative, Immersive and Interactive Engagements
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HANNA-RIIKKA ROINE HANNA-RIIKKA Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 2197 HANNA-RIIKKA ROINE Imaginative, Immersive and Interactive Engagements Imaginative, Immersive and Interactive Engagements The rhetoric of worldbuilding in contemporary speculative fiction AUT 2197 AUT HANNA-RIIKKA ROINE Imaginative, Immersive and Interactive Engagements The rhetoric of worldbuilding in contemporary speculative fiction ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Board of the School of Language, Translation and Literary Studies of the University of Tampere, for public discussion in the auditorium Pinni B 1097, Kanslerinrinne 1, Tampere, on 27 August 2016, at 12 o’clock. UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE HANNA-RIIKKA ROINE Imaginative, Immersive and Interactive Engagements The rhetoric of worldbuilding in contemporary speculative fiction Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 2197 Tampere University Press Tampere 2016 ACADEMIC DISSERTATION University of Tampere School of Languages, Translation Studies and Literary Studies Finland The originality of this thesis has been checked using the Turnitin OriginalityCheck service in accordance with the quality management system of the University of Tampere. Copyright ©2016 Tampere University Press and the author Cover design by Mikko Reinikka Distributor: [email protected] https://verkkokauppa.juvenes.fi Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 2197 Acta Electronica Universitatis Tamperensis 1696 ISBN 978-952-03-0194-1 (print) ISBN 978-952-03-0195-8 (pdf) ISSN-L 1455-1616 ISSN 1456-954X ISSN 1455-1616 http://tampub.uta.fi Suomen Yliopistopaino Oy – Juvenes Print 441 729 Tampere 2016 Painotuote ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing a PhD dissertation is often likened to making a long journey. For me, however, it resembled putting together a puzzle. The biggest challenge was that, at the beginning, I had only a vague idea of what the puzzle would look like when completed. There was no model which I could have worked towards. As a result, doing research and writing resembled picking up a piece after another and then trying to see if the pieces would fit together. Sometimes they would, sometimes they would not. In the end, the most rewarding moment of the process was when the puzzle started to make sense as a whole. Suddenly, it was no longer a collection of fragments, but a picture – or, rather, the overarching idea that I had been working through – emerged. I very much hope that the reader of this study will see it too. I have been extremely lucky to have so many people guide and help me during this endeavour. Everybody who has commented my work and discussed it with me has been a great help, but I wish to thank a couple of people by name. My supervisors, the accomplished masters in the art of puzzle-solving, made it possible that this puzzle was completed at all. The now retired Professor Pekka Tammi encouraged me to start the project and was the first to suggest that there might be something in taking digital games into my case studies. Maria Mäkelä, who already supervised my master’s thesis, has been both inspiring and demanding as a supervisor – despite the fact that she has a dark past as the founder of quite a Hobbit-critical association. Merja Polvinen, who replaced Pekka as my supervisor in the last but crucial stage of the project, brought her thorough expertise of science fiction and fantasy as well as her encouraging attitude to the project. I have been fortunate to have them as my principal guides especially through the times when all the pieces were outspread and refusing to form a whole of any sort. All my dear colleagues and co-puzzle-solvers have supported me immensely throughout this project. Many of them have shared their working space, lunches, coffee breaks and conference hotel rooms with me or commented my work at some point in seminars or on other occasions. Thank you Liisa Ahlava, Lieven Ameel, Samuli Björninen, Mari Hatavara, Tarja-Liisa Hypén, Juho Härme, Teemu Ikonen, Saija Isomaa, Mikko Kallionsivu, Maria Laakso, Toni Lahtinen, Hanna Meretoja, Mervi Miettinen, Frans Mäyrä, Anne Päivärinta, Iida Pöllänen, Juha Raipola, Tytti Rantanen, Leena Romu, Hanna Samola, Markku Soikkeli, and everyone else who I have inadvertently forgotten to mention here. The hosts of my four-month PhD student visit to the Aarhus University, Henrik Skov Nielsen and Stefan Iversen, also sped my process along with their comments and critique. The students attending my courses and, in particular, the graduate students whose work I supervised have also been great sources of inspiration. One could not wish for a more enthusiastic and supportive group of esteemed colleagues and commentators than everyone at FINFAR, encompassing both the long-lived seminar and much younger The Finnish Society for Science and Fantasy Research. I especially want to thank my editors-in-arms with Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, Jyrki Korpua, Aino-Kaisa Koistinen and Päivi Väätänen. Completing my licenciate thesis was an important step towards this work, and the examiners of that thesis, Samuli Hägg and Raine Koskimaa, offered a great deal of helpful advice and comments. Furthermore, this puzzle of a study might have been completed differently without the insightful input of the pre-examiners Samuli Hägg and Jesper Juul. Financially, my work would not have been possible without the support from the University of Tampere, the Finnish Cultural Foundation (Suomen Kulttuurirahasto) and the Aarhus University which awarded me a visiting PhD student grant. I thank them for giving me the opportunity to concentrate fully on doing research. I would not be here without the invaluable support of my family and a wide network of friends who have been there for me either face to face or over various chats. The biggest kudos goes to my mother Merja, who introduced me and my brother to the books of writers like Tove Jansson, Astrid Lindgren, Philip Pullman and J.R.R. Tolkien and who remains, among other things, the best voice actor of Gollum. My like-minded brother Lauri has accompanied me to both a Harry Potter LARP and screenings of The Lord of the Rings films. I am sure we will start our series of fanfiction one day! Minerva the cat moved to our place in the final months of my project, and her chirping and purring distracted me just enough to remain sane. Finally, I would like to thank Jaakko, my husband, a fellow science fiction geek and an uncompromising sparring partner, who has a crazy fire in his heart. There is just the right amount of paragon and renegade in him. I dedicate this study to the memory of my father who passed away almost twenty years ago. This is what I grew up to do, dad. Tampere, 1 July 2016 Hanna-Riikka Roine ABSTRACT The dissertation addresses the relevance and purpose of speculative fiction. How can we analytically examine the ways speculative fiction – fantasy and science fiction – can speak to us? Why is it possible to find relevance in works of fiction dealing with distant, strange and impossible worlds, events and characters? The main finding of the dissertation is that worldbuilding is among the most fundamental rhetorical and communicative practices of speculative fiction. Furthermore, the dissertation proves that as a practice that transcends medial boundaries, worldbuilding is one of the features that define speculative fiction genre. The case studies of the dissertation present a wide variety of contemporary speculative fiction from novels to digital games, films, television shows and fanfiction stories. They have been chosen not only to illustrate the poetics of speculative fiction but also to guide theoretical debates into new territories in the spirit of descriptive poetics. The principal theoretical frameworks are rhetorical and transmedial narratology. Until now, they have largely drawn both their case studies and analytical concepts from literary fiction – and a very particular kind of literary fiction – while speculative fiction and other media have been overlooked. In this regard, the starting point of the dissertation is that the theoretical apparatus of narratology can effectively highlight features and questions relevant to speculative fiction, while material that is new to the apparatus can, in turn, refine and complement the theory. The dialogue between the case studies and the theory, described above, is brought to the fore through the concept of worldbuilding. The dissertation challenges and complements the established ways of using the concept both in narratology and in speculative fiction research. Worldbuilding is defined as a rhetorical and communicative practice instead of focusing on the ontologically oriented analysis of “creating” a world or on the cognitively informed approach emphasising “making sense” of worlds. Instead, the practice of worldbuilding is suited for introducing ideas or thought experiments central to speculative fiction and for engaging the users – readers, players and viewers – to work out these ideas and experiments. The main argument on worldbuilding has been divided into three sections that address different ways of engaging with works of fiction: imagination, immersion, and interaction. Worldbuilding is, thus, seen as a practice that guides both the creation of works of fiction and the ways the users approach the works. The first section (Chapters 1–3) outlines worldbuilding as a distinct practice of emphasising ideas and enabling different uses of imagination to come together. Speculative fiction combines the creative imagining of fictional characters, events and locations with the rational and systematic process of prospecting into what is to come. In addition to this, the double-layered quality of fiction – the simultaneous awareness of the artifice and the possibly existing dimensions of the work at hand – is seen as a fundamental quality of worldbuilding as a rhetorical and communicative practice. The second section (Chapters 4–6) addresses worldbuilding as a dynamic process between the work and the user. Immersion is, therefore, defined as a similarly dynamic activity, where the user both apprehends the framework and uses it.