Call for papers

In 1990, two books dealing with the notion of fiction as make-believe were published within Aesthetics and Analytical Philosophy: Kendall Walton’s Mimesis and Make-Believe and Gregory Currie’s The Nature of Fiction. Both books explain fictionality in analogy to children’s games of make-believe. According to Walton, once a game of make-believe is going on, participants will generate fictional truths according to the unwritten, but mutually accepted rules of the game. Walton further argues that this game of make-believe works approximately the same way for all types of representational arts, e.g. novels, films, poems, pictures, plays, statues, dance and even music. Works of art have in common that they are used as props in games of make-believe with the result that the “mechanics of generation” of fictional truths are at work. Both Walton and Currie have given thorough accounts of how these mechanics of generation can be described, with rich examples from all fields, above all from literature and film. They have also emphasized that all the different categories of art generate fictional truths in their own special way. However, Walton’s and Currie’s extensive and integrative theoretical approaches mainly focus on the general perspective. Their analyses and theoretical framework both give reason and leave room for further exploration of various similarities and differences between possible and specific instances of fiction as make-believe in the representational arts. Therefore, we are looking for proposals that investigate these specific ways of generation of fictional truths within all representational arts. We are inviting proposals from scholars within the whole range of the Humanities. Possible topics of investigation include case-studies of the generation of fictional truths in
  • literature

  • film

  • narrative in general

  • theater

  • opera

  • dance

  • painting

  • photography

  • visual arts in general

  • computer games

  • music

We especially welcome contributions that focus on works of art in lesser known areas of research, such as the graphic novel, radio theatre and other possible genres and media which so far have been neglected in research about their specific ways of generating fictional truths. We also like to especially encourage papers working with interdisciplinary and interartial approaches, e.g. studies that focus on adaptations of novels into movies, or any other kind of interrelation between the generation of fictional truth in different categories of the representational arts. Besides contributions about specific categories within the arts as well as specific artworks, we are also interested in contributions that further investigate more general topics within the theoretical framework, e. g., but not exclusively the so-called principles of generation:
  • the reality principle

  • the mutual believe principle

  • the principle of minimal departure

  • the principle of genre convention

  • the principle of media convention

as well as newly formulated principles for the generation of fictional truths, or other topics of more general character within the theoretical frame of fiction as make-believe. Keynote speakers:
  • Gregory Currie, University of Nottingham (Great Britain)

  • Peter Lamarque, University of York (Great Britain)

  • Stein Haugom Olsen, Høgskolen i Østfold (Norway)

  • Kendall L. Walton, University of Michigan (USA)

Please provide the title and a 300-word abstract of the paper you propose; your name, institutional affiliation, and email address; and a brief statement (no more than 100 words) about your work and your publications. Due to pending decisions on fund raising, a conference fee may be charged. Deadline for proposals: July 1, 2011; please send your proposal to alexander.bareis(at)tyska.lu.se, as well as any requests for further information. Announcement of accepted proposals by September 1, 2011. We are looking forward to read your proposals! Alexander Bareis (Lund University), Lene Nordrum (Chalmers University of Technology)
Sidansvarig: itht.luse | 2020-06-26