Fiction is generally understood to be a fascinating, yet somehow deficient affair, merely derivative of reality. What if we could, instead, come up with an affirmative approach that takes stories seriously in their capacity to bring forth a substance of their own? Iconic texts such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and its numerous adaptations stubbornly resist our attempts to classify them as mere representations of reality. Friederike Danebrock shows how these texts insist that we take them seriously as agents and interlocutors in our world- and culture-making activities. Drawing on this analysis, she develops a theory of narrative fiction as a generative practice.
Price: $55.00
Pages: 292
Publisher: transcript publishing
Imprint: transcript publishing
Publication Date:
11 April 2023
Trim Size: 8.86 X 5.83 in
ISBN: 9783837665505
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies
»A rich, compelling, extremely intelligent, at times overly dense treatise on the ways in which stories are not only part of but indeed co-constitutive of the world.
With its deep commitment to theory, the book demands from its reader a readiness to join the tour de force that it embarks upon and this is no doubt a highly rewarding and stimulating exercise in pure speculation.«
Friederike Danebrock earned her doctorate in English literature from Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany. Besides psychoanalysis and/as materialist philosophy, her research focuses on narrative theory and theories on fiction.
Frontmatter 1
Contents 7
Acknowledgments 11
Introduction 13
Introduction 49
Narrative Interest and the Body 57
Physicality and Perspective 85
Part One: Coda 115
Introduction 119
Sequels: Going Forward, Looking Back 127
Repeating Repetition: Series and Singularity 151
Part Two: Coda 185
Introduction 189
Imperfection and Collaboration 197
Strange Intimacies: Vulnerability and Liberation 221
Part Three: Coda 255
"Love Your Monsters" 257
Works Cited 279
