Explorations of Consciousness in Contemporary Fiction

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-90-04-34783-0
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 51, 250 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 340 g

Reihe: Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Explorations of Consciousness in Contemporary Fiction is a collection of essays examining the potential of the contemporary English-language novel to represent and inquire into various aspects of the human mind. Grounded in contemporary literary theory as well as consciousness studies, the essays consider both narrative techniques by means of which writers attempt to render various states of consciousness (such as multimodality in digital fiction or experimental typography in post-traumatic narratives), and novelistic interpretations of issues currently being investigated by neurobiologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers of the mind (such as the adaptive value of consciousness or the process of self-integration by means of self-narration). The volume thus offers critical reflection upon the novel’s cognitive accomplishment in this challenging area.

Contributors are: Nathan D. Frank, Judit Friedrich, Justyna Galant, Marta Komsta, Péter Kristóf Makai, Ajitpaul Mangat, Grzegorz Maziarczyk, James McAdams, Daniel Panka, Barbara Puschmann-Nalenz, Joanna Klara Teske, Lloyd Issac Vayo, Dóra Vecsernyés, Sylwia Wilczewska

Autoren/Hrsg.

Maziarczyk, Grzegorz

Teske, Joanna Klara

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Prosa, Erzählung, Roman, Prosaautoren
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Psychologie: Allgemeines
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophie des Geistes, Neurophilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

b>Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Contemporary Fiction and Consciousness
Grzegorz Maziarczyk and Joanna Klara Teske

1 “Unquantifiable factors”: The Concept of Qualia in Two Novels about Artificial Intelligence by Richard Powers and David Gerrold
Dániel Panka
2 Creations of the Posthuman Mind: Consciousness in Peter Watts’sBlindsight
Justyna Galant
3 “Men are Noisy creachers”: Dystopian Consciousness in Patrick Ness’sChaos Walking Trilogy
Marta Komsta
4 Autistic Consciousness Represented: Fictional Mental Functioning of a Different Kind
Péter Kristóf Makai
5 Embodied Consciousness: Autism, Life Writing, and the Limits of the Cognitive Paradigm
Ajitpaul Mangat
6 Reality of the Unreal: The Use of Contradiction in Postmodern Fiction Exploring the Creative Potential of the Human Mind
Joanna Klara Teske
7 Art, Madness and the Divine in Russell Hoban’sThe Medusa Frequency
Sylwia Wilczewska
8 Narrated Madness: Extreme States of Consciousness in A.S. Byatt’s Frederica Quartet
Barbara Puschmann-Nalenz
9 Richard Powers’s “Hybrid Bastard”: The Echo Maker and “The Postpsychiatric Novel”
James McAdams
10 Bullet in the Head: Jess Walter’s The Zero and the Conscious Conscience of 9/11
Lloyd Isaac Vayo
11 The Embodied Mind: Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Dóra Vecsernyés
12 Addressing the Self in Keri Hulme’s the bone people
Judit Friedrich
13 Multimodality, Interactivity and Embodiment: Representation of Consciousness in Digital Narratives
Grzegorz Maziarczyk
14 The Mind of Then We Came to the End: A Transmental Approach to Contemporary Metafiction
Nathan D. Frank

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Grzegorz Maziarczyk, Ph.D. (2003), John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, is Head of Department of American Literature and Culture at that university. He has published monographs and articles on contemporary fiction, including The Novel as Book (KUL Press, 2013).

Joanna Klara Teske, Ph.D. (2007), John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, is Assistant Professor in the Institute of English Studies. She has published on contemporary fiction and cognitive theory of art, including Contradictions in Art: The Case of Postmodern Fiction (2016).