SPECULATIVE REALISM the Merging of Postmodernism And
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The Epistemic Value of Speculative Fiction JOHAN DE SMEDT and HELEN DE CRUZ
bs_bs_banner MIDWEST STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY Midwest Studies In Philosophy, XXXIX (2015) The Epistemic Value of Speculative Fiction JOHAN DE SMEDT and HELEN DE CRUZ 1. STORYTELLING AND PHILOSOPHIZING In Daniel F. Galouye’s novel Simulacron-3 (1964), a team of computer scientists employs an elaborate computer simulation to reduce the need for marketing research in the actual world.The agents in the simulation are conscious and do not realize they live in a simulated world. When Morton Lynch, one of the scientists, mysteriously disappears, his colleague Douglas Hall attempts to find out what happened to him, only to realize that nobody else even remembers the vanished man. Gradually, it transpires that the world Hall inhabits is also a simulation, and thus that their creation is a simulation within a simulation. The fact that Hall remembers Lynch is a computer glitch. The novel explores several philosophical topics: If the creator of a simulated world turns out to be a malicious sadist (as is the case in the novel), can he be considered a god to his creation? Do simulated beings have souls? If there is an afterlife, will only “real” people go there, or also simulated beings? Can you fall in love with a simulated being? How do people from the level above know they are living in the real physical world, or do they perhaps also inhabit a simulation? Schwitzgebel and Bakker (2013) explore similar issues in their short story Reinstalling Eden, focusing on the moral responsibilities of creators of simulations to their simulated entities. Nick Bostrom (2003), in his philosophical paper “Are We Living in a Com- puter Simulation?,” uses a weak indifference principle and probability calculus to argue that it is either highly likely that we are living in a computer simulation, or that future generations will never run any simulations (for instance, because they © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. -
Narrative Structure in Literature
ELA Virtual Learning English II April 27, 2020 English II Lesson: April 27, 2020 Objective/Learning Target: ● I can analyze how an author’s choices in story structure impact the reader. BELL RINGER The night was calm, but a storm -- full of Timing is everything, especially when it rain and budding anger -- began to swell A in the distance. comes to writing and storytelling. But what if your timing is off? John felt excited. Afterall, it was his B sixteenth birthday. Take a look at the story details to the left. Place the lettered sections in order from Mrs. Peabody saw him snake through the lowest point of tension to the highest and yard from her kitchen window. And that’s answer the prompt below in a quick write: what she told police during the missing C ● Why does this order create the most amount person investigation. of tension? Explain. John was grounded, but snuck out the back door. The door’s creak seemed D louder than a siren. BELL RINGER ANSWER KEY (Answers will vary) John felt excited. Afterall, it was his Our story begins with a character, likely our protagonist, named sixteenth birthday. John. We learn it’s his 16th birthday, a milestone for many B teenagers but not a whole lot of tension so it may come first. John was grounded, but snuck out the Looks like John has gotten himself into trouble in the past and the back door. The door’s creak seemed tension rises a bit because he is breaking the rules. D louder than a siren. -
AESTHETIC PERSPECTIVE in POETRY FILM: a STUDY of CHARLES BUKOWSKI’S “BLUEBIRD” POEM and ITS VISUAL FORM ADAPTATION by MICHAT STENZEL Abeer M
Global Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Vol.6, No.9, pp.54-70, September 2018 ___Published by European Centre for Research Training and Development UK (www.eajournals.org) AESTHETIC PERSPECTIVE IN POETRY FILM: A STUDY OF CHARLES BUKOWSKI’S “BLUEBIRD” POEM AND ITS VISUAL FORM ADAPTATION BY MICHAT STENZEL Abeer M. Refky M. Seddeek1, Amira Ehsan (PhD)2 1Associate Professor, Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT), P.O. Box: 1029, Gamal Abdel Nasser Avenue, Miami, Alexandria, Egypt 2College of Language and Communication (CLC), Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT), P.O. Box: 1029, Gamal Abdel Nasser Avenue, Miami, Alexandria, Egypt ABSTRACT: This paper is divided into two parts; the first aims at investigating how poetry film fuses spoken word poetry with visual images and sound to create meanings, connotations and associations stronger than those produced by each genre on its own. The paper studies the stream of consciousness flow of images and nonlinear narrative style as the main features of that genre in addition to the editing/montage aesthetics and the spatio-temporal continuity. It also highlights William Wees’ notion that in the cinema the union of words and images strengthens the film’s ties to realism and sheds light on the Russian film-director Andrei Tarkovsky who developed the filming strategy poetic logic and made poetry assert the potential of the cinematic image as a form of artistic expression. In the second part the paper explores Charles Bukowski’s poem “Bluebird” (1992) and Michat Stenzel’s short film “Bluebird” (2017) by analyzing the verbal and visual forms to prove whether the filmmaker has succeeded in transferring the poet’s message and feelings or not through various tools and techniques. -
Teaching Speculative Fiction in College: a Pedagogy for Making English Studies Relevant
Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English Summer 8-7-2012 Teaching Speculative Fiction in College: A Pedagogy for Making English Studies Relevant James H. Shimkus Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Shimkus, James H., "Teaching Speculative Fiction in College: A Pedagogy for Making English Studies Relevant." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2012. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/95 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TEACHING SPECULATIVE FICTION IN COLLEGE: A PEDAGOGY FOR MAKING ENGLISH STUDIES RELEVANT by JAMES HAMMOND SHIMKUS Under the Direction of Dr. Elizabeth Burmester ABSTRACT Speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, and horror) has steadily gained popularity both in culture and as a subject for study in college. While many helpful resources on teaching a particular genre or teaching particular texts within a genre exist, college teachers who have not previously taught science fiction, fantasy, or horror will benefit from a broader pedagogical overview of speculative fiction, and that is what this resource provides. Teachers who have previously taught speculative fiction may also benefit from the selection of alternative texts presented here. This resource includes an argument for the consideration of more speculative fiction in college English classes, whether in composition, literature, or creative writing, as well as overviews of the main theoretical discussions and definitions of each genre. -
Alexis Wright's Carpentaria and the Swan Book
Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal Climate Fiction and the Crisis of Imagination: Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria and The Swan Book Chiara Xausa Department of Interpreting and Translation, University of Bologna, Italy Correspondence: [email protected] Peer review: This article has been subject to a Abstract double-blind peer review process This article analyses the representation of environmental crisis and climate crisis in Carpentaria (2006) and The Swan Book (2013) by Indigenous Australian writer Alexis Wright. Building upon the groundbreaking work of environmental humanities scholars such as Heise (2008), Clark (2015), Copyright notice: This Trexler (2015) and Ghosh (2016), who have emphasised the main article is issued under the challenges faced by authors of climate fiction, it considers the novels as an terms of the Creative Commons Attribution entry point to address the climate-related crisis of culture – while License, which permits acknowledging the problematic aspects of reading Indigenous texts as use and redistribution of antidotes to the 'great derangement’ – and the danger of a singular the work provided that the original author and Anthropocene narrative that silences the ‘unevenly universal’ (Nixon, 2011) source are credited. responsibilities and vulnerabilities to environmental harm. Exploring You must give themes such as environmental racism, ecological imperialism, and the slow appropriate credit violence of climate change, it suggests that Alexis Wright’s novels are of (author attribution), utmost importance for global conversations about the Anthropocene and provide a link to the license, and indicate if its literary representations, as they bring the unevenness of environmental changes were made. You and climate crisis to visibility. -
An Exploration of Afro-Southern Speculative Fiction
University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1-1-2020 Post-Soul Speculation: An Exploration Of Afro-Southern Speculative Fiction Hilary Word Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Recommended Citation Word, Hilary, "Post-Soul Speculation: An Exploration Of Afro-Southern Speculative Fiction" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1817. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1817 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. POST-SOUL SPECULATION: AN EXPLORATION OF AFRO-SOUTHERN SPECULATIVE FICTION A Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Southern Studies The University of Mississippi by HILARY M. WORD May 2020 Copyright © Hilary M. Word 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ABSTRACT This thesis is an examination of female authored, post-soul, Afro-Southern speculative fiction. The specific texts being examined are My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due, Stigmata by Phyllis Alesia Perry, and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. Through exploration of these texts, I posit two large arguments. First, I posit that this thesis as a collective work illustrates how women-authored Afro-Southern speculative fiction based in the post-soul era embodies and champions womanist politics and praxis critical for liberation through speculative elements. Second, I assert that this thesis is demonstrative of how this particular type of fiction showcases the importance of specificity of setting and reflects other, often erased facets of African American identity and realities by centering the experiences of contemporary Black Southerners. -
I PRACTICAL MAGIC: MAGICAL REALISM and the POSSIBILITIES
i PRACTICAL MAGIC: MAGICAL REALISM AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF REPRESENTATION IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY FICTION AND FILM by RACHAEL MARIBOHO DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Arlington August, 2016 Arlington, Texas Supervising Committee: Wendy B. Faris, Supervising Professor Neill Matheson Kenneth Roemer Johanna Smith ii ABSTRACT: Practical Magic: Magical Realism And The Possibilities of Representation In Twenty-First Century Fiction And Film Rachael Mariboho, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2016 Supervising Professor: Wendy B. Faris Reflecting the paradoxical nature of its title, magical realism is a complicated term to define and to apply to works of art. Some writers and critics argue that classifying texts as magical realism essentializes and exoticizes works by marginalized authors from the latter part of the twentieth-century, particularly Latin American and postcolonial writers, while others consider magical realism to be nothing more than a marketing label used by publishers. These criticisms along with conflicting definitions of the term have made classifying contemporary works that employ techniques of magical realism a challenge. My dissertation counters these criticisms by elucidating the value of magical realism as a narrative mode in the twenty-first century and underlining how magical realism has become an appealing means for representing contemporary anxieties in popular culture. To this end, I analyze how the characteristics of magical realism are used in a select group of novels and films in order to demonstrate the continued significance of the genre in modern art. I compare works from Tea Obreht and Haruki Murakami, examine the depiction of adolescent females in young adult literature, and discuss the environmental and apocalyptic anxieties portrayed in the films Beasts of the Southern Wild, Take iii Shelter, and Melancholia. -
A Rhetorical Analysis of Dystopian Film and the Occupy Movement Justin J
James Madison University JMU Scholarly Commons Masters Theses The Graduate School Spring 2015 Occupy the future: A rhetorical analysis of dystopian film and the Occupy movement Justin J. Grandinetti James Madison University Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019 Part of the American Film Studies Commons, American Popular Culture Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons, Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons, Rhetoric Commons, and the Visual Studies Commons Recommended Citation Grandinetti, Justin J., "Occupy the future: A rhetorical analysis of dystopian film and the Occupy movement" (2015). Masters Theses. 43. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019/43 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the The Graduate School at JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Occupy the Future: A Rhetorical Analysis of Dystopian Film and the Occupy Movement Justin Grandinetti A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication May 2015 Dedication Page This thesis is dedicated to the world’s revolutionaries and all the individuals working to make the planet a better place for future generations. ii Acknowledgements I’d like to thank a number of people for their assistance and support with this thesis project. First, a heartfelt thank you to my thesis chair, Dr. Jim Zimmerman, for always being there to make suggestions about my drafts, talk about ideas, and keep me on schedule. -
378954: Speculative Fiction and Magical Realism > Syllabus
378954: Speculative Fiction and Magical Realism WRITING-X 413.9E Spring 2021 Section 1 3 Credits 04/07/2021 to 06/15/2021 Modified 04/04/2021 Meeting Times New course material will be published on Wednesdays. Creative Responses are due by Tuesday, 11:59pm. Feedback and reading responses are due by Wednesday, 11:59pm. Description Reality is frequently inaccurate. Why not accurately depict that? This workshop is dedicated to kick-starting your imagination with the help of visualization and acting exercises, Oulipo writing prompts, and other creative techniques. We take a leap beyond the ordinary with examples on how to craft an engaging alternate reality, flesh out an enthralling non-human character, or dream up an unforgettable story line in space. At the end of 10 weeks, you have a better grip on how to apply creative writing techniques designed to help you think outside the box for your own speculative fiction story. Objectives 1. You will read and analyze seminal works in 21st Century American Speculative fiction by a variety of authors from different ethnicities, class, and gender, with the eye of a creator and not a reviewer. 2. You will develop the muscle of writing, build a writing practice, and participate in a literary community based on writing exercises, discussion threads, and engaging in feedback. 3. You will construct your own novums based on studying the ones in this course in order to write your own. 4. You will identify and practice craft techniques used in literary fiction such as Voice, Character, and Structure, to implement in your own work. -
Introducing I-Docs to Geography: Exploring Interactive Documentary’S Nonlinear Imaginaries
1 Introducing i-Docs to Geography: Exploring interactive documentary’s nonlinear imaginaries Abstract This paper introduces interactive documentaries, or i-Docs, to Geography through an analysis of one i-Doc; Gaza Sderot. Interactive Documentary is an increasingly popular documentary form. I-Docs are defined by ‘nonlinear’ spatiotemporal organisation as their interactive capacities enable multiple pathways through documentary footage and materials. It is often argued that this nonlinearity is politicized by i-Docs to enable polyvocality and the destabilisation of dominant narratives. I argue that i-Docs deserve Geographical attention for two key reasons. Firstly, if Geographers have long explored articulations and reformulations of space-time through media then i-Docs offer an insight into contemporary constructions of nonlinear spatiotemporal imaginaries through interactive medium. Secondly, nonlinearity and its politics has also become foundational to Geography’s own approaches to space-time, making pertinent the explorations of nonlinearity and its socio-political implications that engagement with i-Docs enables. In this context, I analyse Gaza Sderot to explore its construction of a nonlinear spatiotemporal imaginary and question the political perspectives that imaginary generates for its subject of the Gaza conflict. In concluding, I also suggest that i-Docs could be a valuable methodological tool for Geographers. Key Words: Interactive Documentary, Nonlinearity, Space-time, Gaza Sderot, Imaginaries, Politics 2 Introduction Interactive documentary is a new form of documentary that is swiftly gaining prominence. I- Docs can take many digital forms but are defined by their ‘nonlinear’ spatiotemporal organisation and interactive capacities. Rather than presenting footage in a predetermined order, i-Docs offer collections of material such as video clips and still images which users can navigate in various ways. -
E Shadows of Imberfewon a Study of Self-Reflexivitv Iman Rushdie's
e Shadows of ImberfeWonem .* . œ A study of Self-reflexivitv 1n R. K. Npyan9sThe Taslima Nasrin's Lq~a.m. ad Sa Iman Rushdie's Midnipht 's Children Apma V. Zambare Thesis Submitted in partial hilfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Atts (English) Acadia University Fall Convocation 1999 O by Apama Vasant Zambare, 1999 I, Aparna V. Zambare, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to reproduce, loan, or distrubute copies of my thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats on a non-profit basis. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis. Signature of Author Date II Chapter I - Introduction ------------ 1 III Chapter II - A Precursor of Self-reflexivity: R. K. Narayan's The aide -------- 19 IV Chapter III - The Imitation of Non-Literary Discourse An Analysis of Taslima Nasrin's Laja ---- 42 V Chapter - N The Chutnification of Narrative Salrnan Rushdie's Midnight S Children ------ 66 VI Chapter - V Conclusion ------------ 93 This thesis aims at examinhg the complex narrative mode of self-reflexivity, ascertainhg how it senes the postcolonial agenda of destabilizing the power of Eurocentric lit- discourse, the discourse that marginalized Literary traditions of subject peoples. Denved fiom mcient literary traditions, self-reflexive narrative asserts the cul- identity of colonized societies. In particular, this thesis focuses on three self- reflexive novels fiom the indian subcontinent: R. K. Narayan's The Guide, Taslima Nasrin's LuJa, and Salman Rushdie's Midnight 's Children. The self-reflexive techniques employed in each of these narratives Vary a great deal. Narayan's nte Guide is modeled on various ancient patterns of storytelling and on mythic haditions. -
Magic Realism
Magic Realism Magic Realism is a literary movement associated MOVEMENT ORIGIN with a style of writing or technique that incorpo- rates magical or supernatural events into realistic c. 1940 narrative without questioning the improbability of these events. This fusion of fact and fantasy is meant to question the nature of reality as well as call attention to the act of creation. By making lived experience appear extraordinary, magical realist writers contribute to a re-envisioning of Latin-American culture as vibrant and complex. The movement originated in the fictional writing of Spanish American writers in the mid-twentieth century and is generally claimed to have begun in the 1940s with the publication of two important novels: Men of Maize by Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias and The Kingdom of This World by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier. What is most striking about both of these novels is their ability to infuse their narratives with an atmos- phere steeped in the indigenous folklore, cultural beliefs, geography, and history of a particular geographic and political landscape. However, at the same time that their settings are historically correct, the events that occur may appear improb- able, even unimaginable. Characters change into animals, and slaves are aided by the dead; time reverses and moves backward, and other events occur simultaneously. Thus, magic realist works present the reader with a perception of the world where nothing is taken for granted and where anything can happen. 437 Magic Realism The fantastical qualities of this style of writ- ing were heavily influenced by the surrealist movement in Europe of the 1920s and literary avant-gardism as well as by the exotic natural surroundings, native and exiled cultures, and tumultuous political histories of Latin America.