Narrative mapping as cognitive activity and as active participation in storyworlds

AbstractEver the devil’s advocate, Richard Walsh argues in a 2017 article that drawing maps based on narrative fiction is a meaningless activity, because (1) narrative cognition is temporal and not spatial; (2) narrative fiction does not project worlds in any experiential sense of the term (i. e. worlds as immersive environments) but only “worlds” as textual constructs, as products of écriture; and (3) reading should lead to meaningful interpretations, and inferences should be limited by a principle of relevance. His example of futile map-making is the floor plan which is included in the English editions of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s La Jalousie but is absent from the original French edition. In this article, I argue that narrative cognition is not a specialized ability distinct from the forms of cognition that we use in practical life, but rather, the product of these abilities; and I defend the validity of narrative mapping as way to engage the imagination with – yes – a storyworld. This is not to say that narrative understanding requires the drawing or mental contemplation of a comprehensive representation of the storyworld; usually the formation of partial mental maps is sufficient to follow the plot. But for some readers (among them Nabokov) drawing graphic maps is a way to engage the imagination with the storyworld and to enhance comprehension. This map-making activity can go far beyond making sense of the text and become an autonomous activity comparable to writing fan fiction. To support this view, I invoke the numerous maps found on the Internet for narratives ranging from Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. While the strictly “textualist” aesthetics of orthodox literary theory would regard these maps as frivolous, a world-oriented approach regards the urge to map and diagram as a legitimate form of active participation in narrative, because, while you can imagine too little to appreciate these texts, you cannot imagine too much.

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Making Sense

The Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199367313.013.41 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 841-858

Author(s):

Andrew Bowie

Keyword(s):

Modern Philosophy ◽

Active Participation ◽

Philosophy Of Music ◽

Verbal Language ◽

Making Sense ◽

Ways Of Thinking ◽

The Relationship

The existing forms of “philosophy of music” may not always be adequate to the task of making sense of music. Music is usually regarded in such philosophy as an object like any other that is to be explained by analysing the concepts we use to talk about it. The philosophical sense which is generated by music may not be reducible to concepts, because it is only manifest in active participation in music. This essay outlines often neglected developments in modern philosophy, in which the expressive dimensions of language are given full weight, rather than the essence of language being regarded as residing in its representational aspect. Focusing on the expressive dimensions of language opens up ways of thinking about the relationship between music and verbal language that can have major consequences for how we think about philosophy.

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The Web planet: How the changing Internet divided Doctor Who fan fiction writers

Transformative Works and Cultures ◽

10.3983/twc.2009.0129 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Leora Hadas

Keyword(s):

Science Fiction ◽

Web 2.0 ◽

Participatory Culture ◽

Fan Fiction ◽

Doctor Who ◽

Lord Of The Rings ◽

Depth Analysis ◽

Fiction Writers ◽

Communal Space ◽

The Web

This paper analyzes the debate that arose in online Doctor Who fandom surrounding the switch to moderated submissions for "A Teaspoon and an Open Mind," the fandom's main fan fiction archive. As has been the case with many classic texts of science fiction and fantasy, from The Lord of the Rings on, the new adaptation of the cult series Doctor Who was the cause of much tension and conflict within the fandom. It has opened up the franchise to a vast new audience unschooled in the fandom's ways or the ways of fandom at large, and the change in archive policy served as an arena where many of these tensions came to a head. An in-depth analysis of this debate leads to the argument that the cultural logics of fandom and of participatory culture might be more separate than they initially appear. Some fans wholly embrace the ideals of Web 2.0 and argue for the archive as a nonhierarchical, communal space where all content is equal regardless of what standards it might not meet. Yet while their rhetoric resembles the ideas of academia about the potential of fandom as an educational space, other, more veteran fans reject academia, instead using the discourse of private enterprise and property rights, more commonly associated with the producers of texts than with their fans and poachers, to argue for the rights of site moderators to regulate content.

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Functional Character in Fan Fiction: A Case Study of The Lord of the Rings’ Alternative Universe Fan Fiction For Every Evil

Studies in Linguistics and Literature ◽

10.22158/sll.v5n1p70 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. p70

Author(s):

Jieling Fang

Keyword(s):

Queer Theory ◽

Mass Culture ◽

Literary Text ◽

Large Field ◽

Fan Fiction ◽

Lord Of The Rings ◽

Cultural Phenomenon ◽

The Future

From Henry Jenkins onwards, fan fiction study has walked pass almost 30 years and has covered a relatively large field including feminism, queer theory and mass culture, but many scholars still seem to miss the point that fan fiction is firstly a literary text and thus leave its literariness unexamined. In fact, with a high intertextuality and a “poacher” nature, fan fiction can serve as an ideal text to narratology study. This paper, through conducting a case study of The Lord of the Rings’ alternative universe fan fiction For Every Evil, is attempting to unfold fan authors’ literary talent in constructing functional character in the text and use it as a way to deliver personal interpretation to the canon. By applying characters’ known behavior as a method to resolve instability in fan fiction narrative and complete its narrative progress, authors who write alternative universe fan fiction show that this kind of “amateur” writing is worth a closer literary review. It is hoped that through the analysis, the literary merit of fan community can be better recognized, and fan fiction can be treated more as a genre rather than a cultural phenomenon in the future.

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STUDY TOUR IN THE PROCESS OF ACTIVE LEARNING

Knowledge International Journal ◽

10.35120/kij3402517b ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 34 (2) ◽

pp. 517-521

Author(s):

Rositsa Borisova

Keyword(s):

Active Learning ◽

Cognitive Activity ◽

Active Participation ◽

Consumer Society ◽

Study Tour ◽

Modern School ◽

Motivation For Learning ◽

Effective Selection ◽

The Aesthetic ◽

The Individual

This report considers the essence of a study tour as a strategy for active learning. The increasingly evolving consumer society, as well as the depolarization and deideologization of student education in the 21st century, are leading to spiritual deficits that can be filled up spontaneously by undervalued values. There is also the worrying phenomenon that students are reading less and less as a result of which their motivation for learning is greatly reduced.The modern school is tasked with engaging students in well-motivated and intensive study work that encourages them to engage in independent cognitive activity. Active learning is a process that involves different methods, techniques and forms for solving learning tasks in order to improve the quality of learning. Using them provokes interest in students, awakens a desire for active participation in an activity, as a result of which they gain experience, based on specific knowledge and practical activity. Active learning is a two-way process that combines, on the one hand, the active actions of the teacher aimed at the perception of objects by students and, on the other, the active participation of students in this process. The teacher with his story and explanations helps the students to perceive the object observed.The professional competences of the teacher determine the effective selection of methods and techniques that guarantee the successful conduct of the excursion.The article classifies the types of excursions on different bases. The methodology and technique of conducting a study tour are described. A variant technology for conducting a study tour has been developed; The stages are separated; the methods, forms and methods used are indicated.During the excursion, students gain knowledge through active learning under natural conditions. The phenomena are perceived in their entirety, which helps to build students' perceptions in an attractive way.Through the study tour, it influences the emotional sphere of the individual and promotes a wide variety of impressions. The study tour becomes the basis for further work in the classroom by collecting extensive material.It has a beneficial effect on the aesthetic upbringing of students and their social skills.The study tour creates favorable conditions for the successful application of the acquired knowledge in practice. This interactive form of learning facilitates the expression of cross-curricular relationships.

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Beyond sameness and difference: Narrative sense-making in life and literature

Frontiers of Narrative Studies ◽

10.1515/fns-2019-0006 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 76-93

Author(s):

Hanna Meretoja

Keyword(s):

Real Life ◽

Sense Making ◽

Narrative Fiction ◽

Making Sense ◽

Unnatural Narratology ◽

The World ◽

Truth Value ◽

The Difference ◽

Narrative Hermeneutics

AbstractThis article analyses two major problems in the dichotomous framing of the question of whether narratives in fiction and “real life” are the same or different. The dichotomy prevents us from seeing, first, that there are both crucial similarities and differences between them and, second, that there are important similarities between variants of the “similarity approach” and the “difference approach”, both of which tend to rely on ahistorical, universalizing and empiricist-positivistic assumptions concerning factuality, raw experience and the non-referentiality of narrative fiction. The article presents as an alternative to both approaches narrative hermeneutics, which sees all narratives as culturally mediated and historically changing interpretative practices but approaches literary narratives as specific modes of making sense of the world – as ones that have truth-value on a different level than non-literary narratives. Narrative hermeneutics shares with (at least some forms of) unnatural narratology and the Örebro School a passion for the uniqueness of literary narratives, but it places the emphasis on the ability of literature to disclose the world to us in existentially charged ways that would not be otherwise culturally available – in ways that open up new possibilities of thought, action and affect.

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