Difference between revisions of "User:Nico Zorn"

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(Questions I ponder)
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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.]
 
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.]
 
: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)
 
: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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::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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::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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::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. 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.--[[User:Nico Zorn|Nico Zorn]] 22:33, 27 October 2007 (CEST)

Revision as of 21:33, 27 October 2007

Provisorische uralte Infos über mich: http://www.grimoires.de/inhalt.php?art=team&nr=1

Currently researching for the Magisterarbeit:


Jasper Fforde's 'Thursday Next (2001-2007). Intertextuality, Metafiction, Postmodernism

Questions I ponder

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.]

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... --Olaf Simons 16:03, 27 October 2007 (CEST)
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.--Nico Zorn 22:33, 27 October 2007 (CEST)