The Experientiality of Narrative: An Enactivist Approach

doi:10.1515/9783110365658

Book•DOI•

The Experientiality of Narrative: An Enactivist Approach

31 Jan 2014-Vol. 43

TL;DR: The authors studied the dynamics underlying readers' responses to narrative through close readings of literary texts and theoretical discussion in ways that shed light on the deep connection between narrative, literary fiction, and human experience.

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Abstract: How do readers experience literary narrative? Drawing on narrative theory, cognitive science, and the philosophy of mind, this book offers a principled account of the dynamics underlying readers' responses to narrative Through its interdisciplinary approach, this study combines close readings of literary texts and theoretical discussion in ways that shed light on the deep connection between narrative, literary fiction, and human experience

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Journal Article•DOI•

The cinematic mode in fiction

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Marco Bellardi¹•Institutions (1)

Trinity College, Dublin¹

22 Nov 2018

TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the imitation of film form in cinematic novels and short stories on the level of narrative discourse and introduce the concept of "para-cinematic narrator".

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Abstract: Abstract This article focuses on the imitation of film form in cinematic novels and short stories on the level of narrative discourse and introduces the concept of ‘para-cinematic narrator’. The author compares the temporality expressed by verbal tenses in literature and the temporality expressed through film semiosis. The connection between film and literary fiction is explored in terms of foreground and background narrative style. It is argued that the articulation of narrative foreground and background – i. e. the “narrative relief” (Weinrich 1971) – in film form tends to favour the foreground style, and that such narrative relief is ‘flattened’ due to the “monstrative” quality (Gaudreault 2009) of the medium. This flattening is remediated in strongly cinematised fiction and conveyed through the use of verbal tenses. The imitation of montage and specific cinematic techniques is conceived, consequently, as a separate feature that can integrate into this remediated, para-cinematic temporality. Finally, the author recalls the concept of “mode” in genre theory (Fowler 2002), which describes a “distillation” of traits from one genre to another. With the category of cinematic mode the remediation of basic traits from film to literary fiction can be framed in terms of genre-related discourses.

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3 citations

Cites background from "The Experientiality of Narrative: A..."

...14 On experientiality see Fludernik (1996) and, recently, Caracciolo (2014)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Narration and Focalization : A Cognitivist and an Unnaturalist, Made Strange

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Maria Mäkelä¹, Merja Polvinen²•Institutions (2)

University of Tampere¹, University of Helsinki²

01 Sep 2018-Poetics Today

3 citations

Cognitive Affordances, Aesthetic Effects and Social Functions: A Systemic Approach to Narrative Studies

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Federico Pianzola¹•Institutions (1)

University of Milan¹

31 Dec 2017

TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for the adoption of systems theory as a key for the interdisciplinary integration of concepts and theories dealing with the study of narrative, with the aim to foster a fruitful collaboration for the development of a broad systemic theory of narrative.

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Abstract: This paper argues for the adoption of systems theory as a key for the interdisciplinary integration of concepts and theories dealing with the study of narrative. The focus is on a possible solution for the correlation of discursive forms to cognitive, aesthetic, and social functions of narrative, in the context of biographical research. The role of the body and the presence of others are conceived as necessary conditions for the emergence of the narrative experience. Bringing together narratology and biographical research, emphasis is given to the epistemological coherence of interdisciplinary dialogue, with the aim to foster a fruitful collaboration for the development of a broad systemic theory of narrative. At last, I sketch a dynamic system model for the interdisciplinary theorization of narrative research.

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3 citations

Cites background from "The Experientiality of Narrative: A..."

...At the root of experientiality is, then, the tension between the textual design and the recipient’s experiential background” (Caracciolo, 2014: 49)....
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...(Caracciolo, 2014: 50; modified) We should think of experientiality as a kind of network that involves, minimally, the recipient of a narrative, his or her experiential background, and the expressive strategies adopted by the author....
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...For instance, as I have shown, Caracciolo claims that the “experiential background” – that is, the experiences that we lived in the past and that now constitute our cognitive affordances and patterns of enaction (Caracciolo, 2014) – are crucial to experience some words as a narrative, rather than as a description....
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...…I have shown, Caracciolo claims that the “experiential background” – that is, the experiences that we lived in the past and that now constitute our cognitive affordances and patterns of enaction (Caracciolo, 2014) – are crucial to experience some words as a narrative, rather than as a description....
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...Thus, readers of this passage run an embodied simulation of this circular motion, enacting the movements that would be required to perceive a similar scene by reactivating past experiential traces (Caracciolo, 2014: 102)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Mimetic and synthetic views of characters: How readers process “people” in fiction

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Merja Polvinen¹, Howard Sklar¹•Institutions (1)

University of Helsinki¹

14 Nov 2019-Cogent Arts & Humanities

TL;DR: The authors examines recent theories of fictional characters and raises the issue of how far characters can be understood with reference to human intersubjectivity, and examines the relation between characters and human subjectivity.

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Abstract: This article examines recent theories of fictional characters, and raises the issue of how far characters can be understood with reference to human intersubjectivity. On the one hand, empirical res...

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3 citations

Cites background from "The Experientiality of Narrative: A..."

...Within cognitive literary studies Marco Caracciolo (2014) emphasizes such cognitive construction of characters, and notes that while many elements in relating to characters and real people are the same, “the originating experience—the character’s—is created by readers in the interaction with the text” (Caracciolo, 2014, p. 117)....
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...…to be vicariously living with the actions of the characters within the fictional world (imagining emotions, sensations and bodily movement; see e.g. Caracciolo, 2014; Fialho in this Special Issue), and that in itself may well hold the kinds of ethical benefits that studies on readerly empathy have…...
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...Within cognitive literary studies Marco Caracciolo (2014) emphasizes such cognitive construction of characters, and notes that while many elements in relating to characters and real people are the same, “the originating experience—the character’s—is created by readers in the interaction with the…...
[...]
...…Marco Caracciolo (2014) emphasizes such cognitive construction of characters, and notes that while many elements in relating to characters and real people are the same, “the originating experience—the character’s—is created by readers in the interaction with the text” (Caracciolo, 2014, p. 117)....
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...“Enactment” is here understood as a cognitive process whereby the world perceived by an individual is brought forth in an interaction wherein the individual is understood to actively explore their environment rather than just passively receive stimuli from it (Caracciolo, 2014; Varela et al., 1991)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Interactive Digital Narratives as Complex Expressive Means

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Mattia Bellini

26 May 2022-Frontiers in virtual reality

TL;DR: In this article , a complex-systemic understanding of the expressive mechanisms of Interactive Digital Narrative is presented, arguing that sense-making in such artifacts works by synthetizing the knowledge coming from a number of layers of information, which are intercurrent, interdependent and interoperating, and which concurrently participate in the creation of an overall meaning of a higher order.

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Abstract: Is our way of expressing meanings through digital interactive artifacts simple? How does our sensemaking work when we try to understand Interactive Digital Narratives? To answer these and other questions, the present article discusses a complex-systemic understanding of the expressive mechanisms of Interactive Digital Narratives, to argue the expressive complexity of these artifacts. Interactors of Interactive Digital Narratives necessarily base their hermeneutic processes mainly on what is conveyed in the artifact itself; yet the question of how meaning is expressed in (and sense-making is guided by) Interactive Digital Narratives remains significantly open. I contend that sense-making in such artifacts works by synthetizing the knowledge coming from a number of layers of information, which are intercurrent, interdependent and interoperating, and which concurrently participate in the creation of an overall meaning of a higher order. According to complex systems theory, these layers are therefore elements of a complex system: this justifies the understanding. Even though largely unexplored, this understanding may help advance our knowledge of the representational capabilities and affordances of Interactive Digital Narrarives, not least in representing multifaceted worlds and complex phenomena. A complex-systemic view can also improve our comprehension of the interpretative processes involved in the sense-making of Interactive Digital Narratives. Furthermore, the awareness gained through this understanding could be useful to get a better sense of the impact of the narratives featured in these artifacts, and ultimately to create more engaging and more powerful experiences that can help foster the societal impact of Interactive Digital Narratives.

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3 citations

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The Experientiality of Narrative: An Enactivist Approach

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Cites background from "The Experientiality of Narrative: A..."

Cites background from "The Experientiality of Narrative: A..."

Cites background from "The Experientiality of Narrative: A..."

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