Pandemic fiction as therapeutic play: The New York Times Magazine’s The Decameron Project (2020)

This article explores the therapeutic potential of narrative fiction during a global health crisis. We focus on The Decameron Project (2020), a collection of short fiction by writers from around the world, commissioned by the New York Times Magazine. The Decameron Project references the narrative framework established by Giovanni Boccaccio in the mid-14th century, when the Black Death devastated Europe. Drawing on aspects of psychoanalytic theory and principles of bibliotherapy employed since the Middle Ages, we argue that The Decameron Project offers strategies to simultaneously confront and contain the anxious mind. Storytelling, according to both Boccaccio and to the editors of The Decameron Project, is not merely a source of distraction but a means of survival.

My History is Not Mine

<p>Globalisation has helped spread Eurocentric modernist architectural principles across most cultures. In a very real sense, many Eastern cultures are having their own unique architectural histories rewritten, even erased, and in danger of becoming lost. Burmese poet Zeyar Lynn’s poem “My History is Not Mine” represents a powerful lament, decrying the loss of unique cultural identities. Global contemporary architecture rarely recognises the rich litany of ideas that may arise from contemporary responses to cultures, and this design research-led thesis investigation seeks possible solutions to this loss. This investigation is framed around Lynn’s poem “My History is Not Mine”. It seeks to reinterpret some of the most ‘traditional’ elements of modern architecture—room, wall, ceiling, floor, threshold, window, etc.—through fictional narrative theory, allegory and experiential constructs. Eastern superstitions are used as provocateurs, starting points that help the project explicitly move away from traditional Eurocentric formalist architectural precepts. The goal is to test an architectural design method that prioritises the experiential and challenges some of the expected ‘norms’ within which Eurocentric modern architecture has been traditionally situated. This investigation is grounded in speculative architectural design. The three principal design stages of the methodology progress iteratively from physical analogue model, to digital animation, and finally to virtual gaming environment. The intention is to challenge traditional notions of architecture and the way architectural design concepts are conceived, and this is carried forward using a methodology that shifts experimental outcomes from the visual to the experiential—a virtual, time-based approach that deviates from conventional architectural design processes—in order to privilege the investigation of shifts in spatial conditions and experiential perceptions over time. The first stage of the investigation was to explore the abstraction of Eastern superstitions into physical models—‘allegorical artefacts’. These initial experiments were set up as a starting point to help propel the project towards a provocative and evocative pathway of discovery. By examining how these superstitions might be interpreted in a virtual gaming environment in the final stages of the investigation, the investigation challenges how these design interpretations can actively enable important architectural elements, such as threshold, spatial enclosure, visual axes, etc., to be redefined—placing the viewer into an experiential realm that is removed from traditional architectural referencing—and engage them as changes in spatial conditions experienced over time, rather than as primarily object-based. The time-based design outcomes are framed, experienced and tested in relation to Jerome Bruner’s theory of “The Narrative Construction of Reality”. Bruner posited ten requisite steps for achieving a meaningful narrative experience for the reader of narrative fiction. Fictional narrative relies on enabling the participant to self-identify within a fictional context as a vital tool that allows the participant to navigate through the story. This design-led research investigation examines how Bruner’s literary theory might be applied to an architectural experience, to help enable the experiential to become a driver for architectural design, where the participant’s own self-positioning in a time-based scheme becomes a vital element in constructing a unique architectural experience. The framework synthesises the design outcomes within a narrative experience that looks to discover unique solutions to the research objectives. The investigation applies Bruner’s ten constructs of narrative fiction to the architectural experience: diachronicity (relationships over time), particularity (unique cultural attributes), intentional state entailment (agency), hermeneutic composability (synecdoche), canonicity and breach (disruption of the expected), referentially (creation of new realities), genericness (changing the way a story is told), normativeness (multiplicity), contextual negotiability (cultural sensitivity and culturally negotiated meanings), and narrative accrual (collective representation). This thesis asks: How can experiential cultural artefacts be engaged as a conceptual framework to generate an allegorical architectural project? How can the digital gaming interface be used to help architectural design methods better explore the experiential as a design generator?</p>

My History is Not Mine

<p>Globalisation has helped spread Eurocentric modernist architectural principles across most cultures. In a very real sense, many Eastern cultures are having their own unique architectural histories rewritten, even erased, and in danger of becoming lost. Burmese poet Zeyar Lynn’s poem “My History is Not Mine” represents a powerful lament, decrying the loss of unique cultural identities. Global contemporary architecture rarely recognises the rich litany of ideas that may arise from contemporary responses to cultures, and this design research-led thesis investigation seeks possible solutions to this loss. This investigation is framed around Lynn’s poem “My History is Not Mine”. It seeks to reinterpret some of the most ‘traditional’ elements of modern architecture—room, wall, ceiling, floor, threshold, window, etc.—through fictional narrative theory, allegory and experiential constructs. Eastern superstitions are used as provocateurs, starting points that help the project explicitly move away from traditional Eurocentric formalist architectural precepts. The goal is to test an architectural design method that prioritises the experiential and challenges some of the expected ‘norms’ within which Eurocentric modern architecture has been traditionally situated. This investigation is grounded in speculative architectural design. The three principal design stages of the methodology progress iteratively from physical analogue model, to digital animation, and finally to virtual gaming environment. The intention is to challenge traditional notions of architecture and the way architectural design concepts are conceived, and this is carried forward using a methodology that shifts experimental outcomes from the visual to the experiential—a virtual, time-based approach that deviates from conventional architectural design processes—in order to privilege the investigation of shifts in spatial conditions and experiential perceptions over time. The first stage of the investigation was to explore the abstraction of Eastern superstitions into physical models—‘allegorical artefacts’. These initial experiments were set up as a starting point to help propel the project towards a provocative and evocative pathway of discovery. By examining how these superstitions might be interpreted in a virtual gaming environment in the final stages of the investigation, the investigation challenges how these design interpretations can actively enable important architectural elements, such as threshold, spatial enclosure, visual axes, etc., to be redefined—placing the viewer into an experiential realm that is removed from traditional architectural referencing—and engage them as changes in spatial conditions experienced over time, rather than as primarily object-based. The time-based design outcomes are framed, experienced and tested in relation to Jerome Bruner’s theory of “The Narrative Construction of Reality”. Bruner posited ten requisite steps for achieving a meaningful narrative experience for the reader of narrative fiction. Fictional narrative relies on enabling the participant to self-identify within a fictional context as a vital tool that allows the participant to navigate through the story. This design-led research investigation examines how Bruner’s literary theory might be applied to an architectural experience, to help enable the experiential to become a driver for architectural design, where the participant’s own self-positioning in a time-based scheme becomes a vital element in constructing a unique architectural experience. The framework synthesises the design outcomes within a narrative experience that looks to discover unique solutions to the research objectives. The investigation applies Bruner’s ten constructs of narrative fiction to the architectural experience: diachronicity (relationships over time), particularity (unique cultural attributes), intentional state entailment (agency), hermeneutic composability (synecdoche), canonicity and breach (disruption of the expected), referentially (creation of new realities), genericness (changing the way a story is told), normativeness (multiplicity), contextual negotiability (cultural sensitivity and culturally negotiated meanings), and narrative accrual (collective representation). This thesis asks: How can experiential cultural artefacts be engaged as a conceptual framework to generate an allegorical architectural project? How can the digital gaming interface be used to help architectural design methods better explore the experiential as a design generator?</p>

Features of orality in the language of fiction: A corpus-based investigation

This paper explores the pervasiveness of features of orality in the language of performed fiction. Features of orality are typical of spontaneous spoken conversations where they are the result of the ongoing planning process and the interaction between the interlocutors, but they also occur in the context of performed fiction (movies and plays) and in narrative fiction (e.g. novels). In these contexts, they are not the result of the spontaneous planning process but are generally produced to imitate such processes. In this paper, I explore a small range of such features (contractions, interjections, discourse markers, response forms and hesitators) in four corpora of performed fiction that have recently become available ( Corpus of American Soap Operas, TV Corpus, Movies Corpus and Sydney Corpus of Television Dialogue) and compare their frequency patterns with spontaneous face-to-face conversations in the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English and with narrative fiction and academic writing in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The results confirm that the selected features of orality are used regularly in performed fiction but less frequently than in spontaneous face-to-face interactions while they are rare in narrative fiction and almost entirely absent in academic writing. The results also show that the status of the transcriptions contained in these corpora needs to be assessed very carefully if they are to be used for a study of pragmatic features.

Esthetical heteronomy as creation principle of a fictional narrative: on the esthetical function of intertextuality

The relations between the “main” narrative parts of a belletristic text and its (cross)references to other works of literature and/or music, painting etc. play an important part in the structure and functioning of a literary work. The phenomenon of intertextuality belongs at present to the favourite subjects of the research of texts, among others, of fictional texts. However, some relevant functions of implementation of external esthetical works, both literary texts and other art forms, into a fictional narration have not been investigated yet. This paper presents an analyses of two works of narrative fiction written by Tolstoy and T. Mann, with a special attention to the esthetical function of intertextuality by implementation of cross-references to the works of the composer Beethoven (in the case of Th. Mann also of the poet Goethe). The claim is that intertextuality in the esthetical sphere induces a double esthetical function and determines the phenomenon which I will call “esthetical heteronomy”. Its main feature is a very specific influence of external esthetical sources on the internal esthetical values of the primary text.

Nourritures terrestres, nourritures célestes et rhétorique du sublime dans l'art de Bossuet panégyriste

In the Panegyrics of saint Gorgon, Bossuet uses the topics of eating and drinking, and changes its meaning under the paradigm of catholic dogma : it doesn't help any more to express humiliation, but to express the greatness of christianism. This paradoxical construction of christian sublime forms the bedrock of an approach of language as eating and digesting : the topical construction raises the legendary aspect of the narrative of martyrdom - a border case of narrative fiction -, which is itself a component of the poetics of panegyric.

Food, Drink and the Other: Producing Satire and Otherness in Portuguese Literature

Portuguese narrative fiction is plentiful of food and drink references, which vary in meaning and function accordingly to the historical context of production. The peripathetic Portuguese brought culinary knowledge from abroad mainly since the 16th century, merging cultural changes of food and drink with practices from their country of origin. This was a turning point in the history of Portuguese narrative fiction, for it made more present the concept of the "other" through consumption habits. An extremely short travel between 16th and 19th narrrative fiction examples intends to highlight some uses of food and drink as topoi in historical and cultural context, asserting the relevance of this resource to articulate identities and alterities.