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Kai Mikkonen

Bio: Kai Mikkonen is an academic researcher from University of Helsinki. The author has contributed to research in topics: Narrative & Comics. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 27 publications receiving 154 citations. Previous affiliations of Kai Mikkonen include University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle.

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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the rhetoric of madness in post-Conradian portrayals of the sub-Saharan African forest and examine the way in which the description of African forests identifies certain ‘mad' properties of the place as well as of the persons within that place.
Abstract: ��� This article examines the rhetoric of madness in post-Conradian portrayals of the sub-Saharan African forest. My specific interest lies in certain privileged moments of description in Graham Greene’s travelogue, Journey Without Maps (1936), and Louis-Ferdinand Celine’s novel Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932), in which the language of description ceases to represent thought as the sane contemplation of an object and instead invents ways to imitate the irrational mental processes of dreams, hallucination, or madness. These privileged instances of cultivated confusion draw especially on the effects of stupefying detail–or its opposite, the stupefying lack of detail–in their language and logic of description. Such scenes suggest an analogy between the landscape of the forest and the landscape of the mind; the descriptions of the landscape are continually bearing the signs of the traveller’s disintegrating mind, so that they also become vehicles for its representation. What further contributes to the rhetoric of madness in these descriptions is the conflation of the space of the forest with the portrayals of Africans, colonials and fellow travellers. Here, however, I will only point to some of the specificities in these writers’ work as it blends the space of the forest with the minds of other people. As Shoshana Felman argues, the rhetoric of madness involves the thematization of a certain discourse about madness in literature, which, ‘mobilizing all the linguistic resonances of eloquence, asserts madness as the meaning, the statement of the text’. 1 In the light of this, I intend to examine the way in which the description of African forests identifies certain ‘mad’ properties of the place as well as of the persons within that

2 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Figural Solidarity (FS) concept as discussed by the authors was introduced as a critical adaptation of Groensteen's notion of iconic solidarity in narrative comics, which provides additional explanatory power in the central cases of narrative comics.
Abstract: Thierry Groensteen’s concept of iconic solidarity (IS) is one of the most familiar terms in all of comics scholarship. This paper introduces a new theoretical term and concept, figural solidarity (FS), as a critical adaptation of Groensteen’s notion (1999; 2011); FS provides additional explanatory power in the central cases of narrative comics. FS is founded on the coreferentiality of sequential figures, which provides both cohesiveness and driving force for visual narratives. The introductory section compares empirical eye-tracking data with the hypothesized top-down strategies of readers influenced by FS, as they concentrate on recurring characters to understand narratives. Subsequent sections retrace FS’s theoretical roots in Groensteen, Mikkonen and other scholars. The concept of figure in the FS context is defined and intuitive motivation for it provided. We then address, without fully resolving, the question of whether and how linguistic theories of meaning can be applied to comics (with particular reference to Cohn’s Visual Language Theory). We hope that the concept of FS may promote a broader research program into how comics images create meaning.

2 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2006

1 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Holquist as mentioned in this paper discusses the history of realism and the role of the Bildungsroman in the development of the novel in Linguistics, philosophy, and the human sciences.
Abstract: Note on Translation Introduction by Michael Holquist Response to a Question from the Novy Mir Editorial Staff The Bildungsroman and Its Significance in the History of Realism (Toward a Historical Typology of the Novel) The Problem of Speech Genres The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology, and the Human Sciences: An Experiment in Philosophical Analysis From Notes Made in 1970-71 Toward a Methodology for the Human Sciences Index

2,824 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the first two volumes of this work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing, fiction, and theories of literature as discussed by the authors, and this final volume, a comprehensive reexamination and synthesis of the ideas developed in volumes 1 and 2, stands as Ricoeure's most complete and satisfying presentation of his own philosophy.
Abstract: In the first two volumes of this work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing, fiction, and theories of literature. This final volume, a comprehensive reexamination and synthesis of the ideas developed in volumes 1 and 2, stands as Ricoeur's most complete and satisfying presentation of his own philosophy.

2,047 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of the reader in the reader's role is discussed in this paper, where Peirce and the Semiotic Foundations of Openness: Signs as Texts and Texts as Signs.
Abstract: Preface Introduction: The Role of the Reader I. Open 1. The Poetics of the Open Work 2. The Semantics of Metaphor 3. On the Possibility of Generating Aesthetic Messages in an Edenic Language II. Closed 4. The Myth of Superman 5. Rhetoric and Ideology in Sue's Les Mysteres de Paris 6. Narrative Structures in Fleming III. Open/Closed 7. Peirce and the Semiotic Foundations of Openness: Signs as Texts and Texts as Signs 8. Lector in Fabula: Pragmatic Strategy in a Metanarrative Text Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Bibliography

978 citations

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TL;DR: Kermode as mentioned in this paper explored the relationship of fiction to age-old conceptions of chaos and crisis and found new insights into some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas.
Abstract: A pioneering attempt to relate the theory of literary fiction to a more general theory of fiction, using fictions of apocalypse as a model. This pioneering exploration of the relationship of fiction to age-old conceptions of chaos and crisis offers many new insights into some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas. Examining the works of a wide range of writers from Plato to William Burroughs, Kermode demonstrates how writers have persistently imposed their \"fictions\" upon the face of eternity and how these have reflected the apocalyptic spirit.

808 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explored interpersonal meaning in social media photographs, using the representation of motherhood in Instagram images as a case study, and investigated the visual choices that are made in these images to construe relationships between the represented participants, the photographer, and the ambient social media viewer.
Abstract: This article explores interpersonal meaning in social media photographs, using the representation of motherhood in Instagram images as a case study. It investigates the visual choices that are made in these images to construe relationships between the represented participants, the photographer, and the ambient social media viewer. The author draws upon existing work on the visual systems of point of view and focalization to explore interpersonal meaning in these images, and proposes that an additional system – subjectification – is needed to account for the kinds of relationship between the viewer and the photographer that are instantiated in social photographs, as well as the ways in which subjectivity is signaled in these images. The dataset analyzed is the entire Instagram feed of a single user who posts images of her experience of motherhood and a collection of 500 images using the hashtag #motherhood.

192 citations