Singles Alternate History

Playing with Contingency and Necessity
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-3-11-027247-5
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band Volume 5, 319 Seiten

Reihe: Narrating Futures

While, strictly speaking, Alternate Histories are not Future Narratives, their analysis can shed a clear light on why Future Narratives are so different from past narratives. Trying to have it both ways, most Alternate Histories subscribe to a conflicting set of beliefs concerning determinism and freedom of choice, contingency and necessity. For the very first time, Alternate Histories are here discussed against the backdrop of their Other, Future Narratives. The volume contains in-depth analyses of the classics of the genre,such as Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle and Philip Roth's The Plot against America, as well as less widely-discussed manifestations of the genre, such as Dieter Kühn's N, Christian Kracht's Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten, and Quentin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds.

Zielgruppe

Scholars of Literary and Cultural Studies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Singles, Kathleen

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturtheorie: Poetik und Literaturästhetik
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Historiographie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;1 Introduction;9
1.1;1.1 Contexts: Alternate Histories and Future Narratives;9
1.2;1.2 Methodology;12
1.3;1.3 Proceedings and Theses;14
1.4;1.4 Selection of Primary Sources;18
1.4.1;1.4.1 Medium vs. Genre;18
1.4.2;1.4.2 The International Spectrum;19
2;2 The Poetics of Alternate History;22
2.1;2.1 ‘History’ in Alternate History;34
2.1.1;2.1.1 The Postmodern Challenge to History;34
2.1.2;2.1.2 Referentiality: Possible-worlds Theory;41
2.1.3;2.1.3 ‘History’ as the Normalized Narrative of the Past;51
2.1.4;2.1.4 The Selection and Emplotment of Historical Events in Alternate History;56
2.1.5;2.1.5 Nineteenth-century Paradigms of History in Alternate History;64
2.2;2.2 Alternate History and Other Kinds of Past Narrative;66
2.2.1;2.2.1 The Epistemology of History: Alternate History in the Context of Postmodern Historical Fiction;66
2.2.2;2.2.2 Alternate Histories versus Secret History, “Plot-type” Counterfactual Histories, and Historical Fiction with “neokausale Verfremdungsverfahren”;81
2.2.3;2.2.3 Alternate Histories versus ‘framed’ Alternate Histories;89
2.2.4;2.2.4 Alternate History versus Counterfactual History;93
2.2.5;2.2.5 Hybrids and Overlap;104
2.2.5.1;2.2.5.1 The ‘Y’: Structure vs. Reception Models;104
2.2.5.2;2.2.5.2 Alternate History as Fantasy;107
2.2.5.3;2.2.5.3 Alternate History as Science Fiction;111
2.3;2.3 Alternate History and Future Narrative;117
2.3.1;2.3.1 Activation of the Reader: Text Strategies of Alternate History;117
2.3.2;2.3.2 Alternate History as Non-interactive game: Points of Divergence versus Nodes;127
2.3.3;2.3.3 Bifurcation vs. Divergence from History;129
2.3.3.1;2.3.3.1 Alternate History versus Forking-paths Narratives;129
2.3.3.2;2.3.3.2 Alternate-history FNs;132
2.3.4;2.3.4 The Paradox of Alternate History: Contingency and Necessity;137
2.3.5;2.3.5 The ‘Open’ Alternate History?;142
2.3.5.1;2.3.5.1 The Open Artwork;142
2.3.5.2;2.3.5.2 The Closed Alternate History;146
3;3 Case Studies;155
3.1;3.1 Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle;155
3.1.1;3.1.1 The Alternate History;155
3.1.2;3.1.2 Piecing It All Together: the Exposition;156
3.1.3;3.1.3 The Alternate History within the Alternate History;163
3.1.4;3.1.4 The Nature of Reality;169
3.1.5;3.1.5 Human Agency;173
3.2;3.2 The ‘Flawed’ Alternate History: Philip Roth’s The Plot against America;177
3.2.1;3.2.1 Roth’s Novel as Alternate History;177
3.2.2;3.2.2 The Alternate-history Autobiography: the National/Political and the Familial/Personal Stages;181
3.2.3;3.2.3 Undermined Authenticity;187
3.2.4;3.2.4 The Question of Causal Logic;192
3.3;3.3 Of Dead Messiahs and Alaskan Dreams: Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union;197
3.3.1;3.3.1 Alternate History Integrated;197
3.3.2;3.3.2 The Detective Game;199
3.3.3;3.3.3 “Strange times to be a Jew”: in Search of a Homeland;205
3.3.3.1;3.3.3.1 Yiddishland;205
3.3.3.2;3.3.3.2 Trouble in Yiddishland: “No future here for any Jew”;208
3.3.4;3.3.4 The Chess Metaphor;212
3.3.4.1;3.3.4.1 Zugzwang;212
3.3.4.2;3.3.4.2 Landsman Plays;213
3.3.4.3;3.3.4.3 Others Play: Saviors and Holy Lands;216
3.3.5;3.3.5 Stories Already Told;220
3.4;3.4 Time Travel and “to the present”: Stephen Fry’s Making History;223
3.4.1;3.4.1 A New Take on a Popular Premise;223
3.4.2;3.4.2 “The true story of what never happened”: Making Sense of Making History;227
3.4.3;3.4.3 The Meisterwerk and Mastering Academia;231
3.4.4;3.4.4 The Historian as God? Agency, Free Will, and Determinism;234
3.4.5;3.4.5 Historical Sensitivity;238
3.5;3.5 An Exceptional Hybrid: Dieter Kühn’s N;241
3.5.1;3.5.1 Alternate History as FN;241
3.5.2;3.5.2 The Structure of a ‘True’ Forking-paths Alternate History;243
3.5.3;3.5.3 The Historiographical Shortcomings of the Past Narrative;245
3.5.4;3.5.4 Big Plans, Little N;249
3.5.5;3.5.5 The Narrator as ‘Great Man’?;252
3.6;3.6 The Mock Alternate History: Inglourious Basterds;255
3.6.1;3.6.1 A New Kind of World-War-II Movie, a New Kind of Alternate History;255
3.6.2;3.6.2 Contingency and the Point of Divergence;257
3.6.3;3.6.3 Metacinema: Competing Director-figures in the Film;261
3.6.4;3.6.4 The Art of Direction: Authority and Authorization of the Film;268
3.7;3.7 Alternate History as Apotheosis of Representation: Christian Kracht’s Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten;271
3.7.1;3.7.1 Krachtian Alternate History;271
3.7.2;3.7.2 School of KrachtKracht, Christian (Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten);273
3.7.3;3.7.3 Hyperreality and Alternate History;275
3.7.4;3.7.4 Rauchsprache – Krachtsprache;277
3.7.5;3.7.5 Literary Evolution?;280
3.7.6;3.7.6 Regress and Dissolution;283
4;4 Conclusion;287
4.1;4.1 What if this study had never been written?;287
4.2;4.2 The History (and Future) of Alternate History;290
5;Works Cited;293
5.1;Primary Literature;293
5.2;Secondary Literature;297
5.3;Studies on Indivudual Works;304
6;Index;318

Über Autor(innen)

Singles, Kathleen
Kathleen Singles, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany.

Kathleen Singles, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Kathleen Singles, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.