Difference between revisions of "User:Nico Zorn"

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Provisorische uralte Infos über mich:
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Passed M.A. exam 2008.
http://www.grimoires.de/inhalt.php?art=team&nr=1
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Title of Magisterarbeit: Jasper Fforde's 'Thursday Next' (2001-2007). Intertextuality, Metafiction, Postmodernism
  
Currently researching for the Magisterarbeit:
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Currently researching about King Arthur in Early Modern England (1473-1800) and seeking employment as PhD student. (Researching on that very topic, obviously).
  
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===Dissertation Exposee - Introduction===
  
=Jasper Fforde's 'Thursday Next (2001-2007). Intertextuality, Metafiction, Postmodernism=
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==King Arthur 1473-1800: Between History and Fiction==
  
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Even in the present day, King Arthur is part of popular myth building as well as scientific exploration, especially in connection with the European middle ages in which the Matière de Bretagne got widespread attention. There is no seamless connection from the high middle ages, the apex of the Arthurian Epic, to this day. The middle ages were afterwards shunned and had to be rediscovered by the Romantic Movement; Arthurian literature experiences a revival of its own at about 1800. This has been object of extensive research as has been the medieval treatment of Arthur.
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The period of transfer between 1473 (the beginning of print) and 1800 (the rediscovery of the Middle Ages), on the other hand, has been hardly researched. The Arthurian matter was not lost. It can be found in:
  
==Questions I ponder==
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- “Histories” and “Chronicles”
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- Works of the humanities
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- Encyclopaedic and lexical entries
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- Operas, stage plays, and pageants
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- Verse epics and (topographical) poems
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- Romances
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- Chapbooks
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- Peripheral references of non-fictional texts.
  
1) I just wondered... Linda Hutcheon says (in very short) that there is a big difference in the reader's imaginative process when reading a FICTION (having no real referents) as opposed to a text that is not revealed as fiction. (Narcissistic Narrative, p. 97) Has there been any brainscans perhaps, looking for different brain activity? I am not thinking so much of the difference between a scientific text and a fantasy fiction text... more of a biography and a "novel". [It is clear that Hutcheon does not aim for this, at least not directly... but it would be interesting.]
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The project sketched herein aims to bridge the gap in Arthurian research with the development of a complex view on the options that bodies of knowledge have to survive in different genres and – in the extreme case – in derogatory glosses.  
:What could brain scans prove - the difference is, I guess, rather one in the options you have, once you speak about these texts. If you suppose the text is true (Robinson actually spent these 28 years on his island - can you criticise his book for its plot line? The poor sailor gave his story and that's it. Things are different if we assume the real author is a certain Daniel Defoe, a political write, vulnerable in that position. You might immediately ask him why he wrote a story to this ending rather than any other. Whatever his hero did - Defoe would have had the chance to make him do something else. You read the fictitious text with the awareness that the author had it in his hands to entertain you to any end. That is, I feel, indeed a tremendous difference... --[[User:Olaf Simons|Olaf Simons]] 16:03, 27 October 2007 (CEST)
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As a researcher, one will highlight some trends over others if one wants or not. How one does this, is interesting. At the same time, the big lines of negotiation are interesting. These negotiations took place within the process of re-invention of historical research from the 16th to the 19th century; by and by, historical research gained power as scientific battleground of societal controversies. A second process from the 17th to 19th century led to the establishment of fiction, literature in today’s meaning. The Arthurian matter changed from a historical to a literary body of knowledge in this time. The process is marked by doubts, re-evaluations and, ultimately, a massive valorisation within the newly established cultural history.  
 
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The aim is to fathom out how the knowledge about Arthur survived. This will show that changes in genre were used to allow re-evaluations without losing the value of the transmitted knowledge. The negotiations will show options to keep relevant a body of knowledge that cannot survive as historical truth any more. At this point, the proposed work promises a re-thinking of the function of genres.
::I fully agree, that was not what I meant, though. There is also the question of referentiality of fictional texts w/ several possible answers and the question if a a question of "truth values" is ultimately valid (which it is INSIDE the universe of the fiction but not really outside, i.e. in our discourse on/about it). Your answer was more what Hutcheon meant.
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This thesis focuses on the Arthurian matter in early modern Great Britain, a subject matter of national dimension in the midst of the process that shaped today’s meaning of nation. Thus, the nation was concerned about whatever remained to be discussed between historical research and literary science, in addition to requirements set upon it by politics. On the one hand, one wondered if King Arthur, the mystic hero, really existed; on the other hand, one created as national literature a fictional domain in which one could take renewed pride.  
::My question, though, was meant to ask if there is a difference in the actual thought processes in reading fiction and "real histories", i.e.: do we have different brain areas active for the two different tasks or does the brain treat them essentially the same? (And we then make assumptions/conclusions on/from the realness or fictitiousness of the story in question...presumably with other brain areas than a reading) This aimed a bit more at neurology than literary criticism. And it was only loosely connected to my work, just something that came up.
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The work planned has thus components of the history of a subject matter, of politics, and of a fascinating discursive history. It will also deal with the creation of the category of literature an the early modern book market.[...]
::Put differently: Is there a difference in how the brain, internally, works with texts that we somehow label "fiction" to the way in which it treats text we somehow labelled "fact"? Or are these processes identical and another "sorting" process occurs after which we can apply the differntiations you mentioned. ("Are there different brain activities depending on how a text is perceived in matters of fact/fiction or is reading all the same for any text and those decisions come in a (simultaneous or later) different process?") But do we initially sort fiction/fact (and maybe alternately switch reading one text sometimes as fiction, another time as fact?) or do we read in one universally mode and afterwards evaluate reality/fictitiousness? I am actually not sure if this _could_ be differentiated.
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::Would it be useful to know? I imagine it could say something about learning-through-narratives/metanarratives if a reality register and a fictional register are immediately spearated... although...the more I think about it, the more I feel I have run into a dead-end. I somehow have in mind the mnemotic techniques of remembering by putting things into a story but just noticed that this has essentially not to do with the difference of reality and fiction - it just does not matter, at least not for remembering. I would guess it maybe is simultaneous thought processes but which have nothing to do with the reading itself. And I wanted to put two wholly distictive processes in place at first. --[[User:Nico Zorn|Nico Zorn]] 22:33, 27 October 2007 (CEST)
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Latest revision as of 10:30, 14 December 2009

Passed M.A. exam 2008. Title of Magisterarbeit: Jasper Fforde's 'Thursday Next' (2001-2007). Intertextuality, Metafiction, Postmodernism

Currently researching about King Arthur in Early Modern England (1473-1800) and seeking employment as PhD student. (Researching on that very topic, obviously).

Dissertation Exposee - Introduction

King Arthur 1473-1800: Between History and Fiction

Even in the present day, King Arthur is part of popular myth building as well as scientific exploration, especially in connection with the European middle ages in which the Matière de Bretagne got widespread attention. There is no seamless connection from the high middle ages, the apex of the Arthurian Epic, to this day. The middle ages were afterwards shunned and had to be rediscovered by the Romantic Movement; Arthurian literature experiences a revival of its own at about 1800. This has been object of extensive research as has been the medieval treatment of Arthur. The period of transfer between 1473 (the beginning of print) and 1800 (the rediscovery of the Middle Ages), on the other hand, has been hardly researched. The Arthurian matter was not lost. It can be found in:

- “Histories” and “Chronicles” - Works of the humanities - Encyclopaedic and lexical entries - Operas, stage plays, and pageants - Verse epics and (topographical) poems - Romances - Chapbooks - Peripheral references of non-fictional texts.

The project sketched herein aims to bridge the gap in Arthurian research with the development of a complex view on the options that bodies of knowledge have to survive in different genres and – in the extreme case – in derogatory glosses. As a researcher, one will highlight some trends over others if one wants or not. How one does this, is interesting. At the same time, the big lines of negotiation are interesting. These negotiations took place within the process of re-invention of historical research from the 16th to the 19th century; by and by, historical research gained power as scientific battleground of societal controversies. A second process from the 17th to 19th century led to the establishment of fiction, literature in today’s meaning. The Arthurian matter changed from a historical to a literary body of knowledge in this time. The process is marked by doubts, re-evaluations and, ultimately, a massive valorisation within the newly established cultural history. The aim is to fathom out how the knowledge about Arthur survived. This will show that changes in genre were used to allow re-evaluations without losing the value of the transmitted knowledge. The negotiations will show options to keep relevant a body of knowledge that cannot survive as historical truth any more. At this point, the proposed work promises a re-thinking of the function of genres. This thesis focuses on the Arthurian matter in early modern Great Britain, a subject matter of national dimension in the midst of the process that shaped today’s meaning of nation. Thus, the nation was concerned about whatever remained to be discussed between historical research and literary science, in addition to requirements set upon it by politics. On the one hand, one wondered if King Arthur, the mystic hero, really existed; on the other hand, one created as national literature a fictional domain in which one could take renewed pride. The work planned has thus components of the history of a subject matter, of politics, and of a fascinating discursive history. It will also deal with the creation of the category of literature an the early modern book market.[...]