- Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu, Ülikooli 18, 50090 Tartu, Estonia
Marina Grishakova
University of Tartu, Institute of Cultural Research, Department Member
- Narrative, Narratology, Cognitive Narratology, Semiotics, Cognitive Semiotics, Film Studies, and 31 moreIntellectual History, Narrative Theory, Poetics, Aesthetics, Literature and Philosophy, Cognition, Cognitive Linguistics, Cultural Studies, Cultural Theory, Philosophy, Cultural Evolution, Non Darwinian evolution, Embodied Embedded Cognition, Biosemiotics, Fictionality, Fiction, Philosophy of Mind, Narrative Studies, Culture Studies, Cultural Semiotics, Cognitive Literary Theory, Evolution, History of Ideas, Art and Evolution, Film Theory, Film and Media Studies, 4E Cognition, Culture and Cognition, Literary Theory, Literature And Science, and Naturalism (Philosophy)edit
- My current work focuses on complexity and the epistemology of experimentation in sciences and art. More broadly, my r... moreMy current work focuses on complexity and the epistemology of experimentation in sciences and art. More broadly, my research interests include narratology, literary theory and philosophy (particularly the issues of representation and naturalism), film, and 20th-century intellectual history.edit
This special issue introduces new conceptions and approaches in the field, acknowledging its openness and the sense of discovery at its core. The articles discuss the "Aeolian poetics" (featuring images of wind, air, and travel) in Virgil... more
This special issue introduces new conceptions and approaches in the field, acknowledging its openness and the sense of discovery at its core. The articles discuss the "Aeolian poetics" (featuring images of wind, air, and travel) in Virgil and Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World; marine biology and the deep sea as a metaphor of metafictionality; experimental thinking in literature, psychology and philosophy; permaculture and ecocritical literature; children's literature as a productive field for imagological study; electronic literatures in the Global South, and the political significance of Ukrainian-French translations of poetry. In his keynote "On Geocriticism, Bookstores, and the Inn of the Distant", Bertrand Westphal highlights the connection between the geocritical research and social reality, drawing on his experiences of bookstores in West Africa, Argentina, China, and the United States, and reflecting on the physical and linguistic accessibility of literary works in different parts of the world. More information at https://classiques-garnier.com/complit-journal-of-european-literature-arts-and-society-en.html
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Conceived by Wagner as a way to recover the synthesis of arts at the core of Greek tragedy, the Gesamtkunstwerk played a significant role in post-Romantic and avant-garde aesthetics. It was designed to regenerate and defend the public... more
Conceived by Wagner as a way to recover the synthesis of arts at the core of Greek tragedy, the Gesamtkunstwerk played a significant role in post-Romantic and avant-garde aesthetics. It was designed to regenerate and defend the public function of art against mass culture and technology, yet at the same time depended on them in an ambivalent relationship manifested by its various realizations. The book reconceives the "total work of art" as a variation of intermediality, a practice that subverts any essentialist vision of artistic languages through complex interplay and blending of perceptions, amplified by new media and the syncretic nature of the cyberspace. This book reveals the vitality of modern and contemporary Gesamtkunstwerk by mapping its presence in various arts and media.
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The variety in contemporary philosophical and aesthetic thinking as well as in scientific and experimental research on complexity has not yet been fully adopted by narratology. By integrating cutting-edge approaches, this volume takes... more
The variety in contemporary philosophical and aesthetic thinking as well as in scientific and experimental research on complexity has not yet been fully adopted by narratology. By integrating cutting-edge approaches, this volume takes another step toward filling this gap and establishing interdisciplinary narrative research on complexity. Narrative Complexity provides a framework for a more complex and nuanced study of narrative and explores the experience of narrative complexity in terms of cognitive processing, affect, and mind and body engagement. The book discusses important questions on how narrative complexity functions as an agent of cultural evolution, how interactive media produce new types of narrative complexity, and how the role of embodiment as a factor of narrative complexity acquires prominence in cognitive science and media studies. The contributors explore narrative complexity transmitted through various semiotic channels, embedded in multiple contexts, and across different media, including film, comics, music, interactive apps, audio-walks, and ambient literature.
Research Interests: Semiotics, Cognitive Science, Media Studies, Film Studies, Narrative, and 15 moreComplexity Theory, Embodied Cognition, Cognitive Narratology, Narratology, Complex Systems, Attention, Prediction, Complexity, Interactive and Digital Media, Cultural Evolution, Neurophenomenology, Jazz Studies, Narrative Theory, Art and Evolution, and Predictive Processing
Research Interests: Semiotics, Intellectual History, Cultural History, Philosophy, Epistemology, and 31 moreTranslation Studies, Literary Criticism, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Narratology, Bakhtin, Poetics, Literary Theory, Roland Barthes, Rhetorical Criticism, Jacques Derrida, Structuralism/Post-Structuralism, Linguistics, Psychoanalysis And Literature, Narrative Theory, Literature and Philosophy, Annales school, Russian Formalism, Fernand Braudel, Greimas, Yuri Lotman, Paul de Man, Jacques Le Goff, Harold Bloom, Georges Poulet, Marc Bloch, Neo-Aristotelianism, Poetik und Hermeneutik, Prague School, Tartu-Moscow School, and Roman Jakobson
Research Interests: Intellectual History, Cultural Studies, European Studies, Comparative Literature, Gender Studies, and 13 moreNew Media, Translation Studies, Multilingualism, Popular Culture, Posthumanism, Intermediality, Hybridity, Narratology, Literary Theory, Migration Studies, Imagology, 20th century Avant-Garde, and Uncertainty
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Kogumik tutvustab tänapäeval kiiresti areneva teadusala – narratoloogia (jututeooria) – probleeme suhestatuses jutustamise praktikatega. Narratiivi käsitletakse semiootilise mediatsiooni vormina: narratiivid osalevad kogemuse ja taju... more
Kogumik tutvustab tänapäeval kiiresti areneva teadusala – narratoloogia (jututeooria) – probleeme suhestatuses jutustamise praktikatega. Narratiivi käsitletakse semiootilise mediatsiooni vormina: narratiivid osalevad kogemuse ja taju maailmade loomisel ning vahendavad inimese suhet ümbritsevaga. Kogumikus on esindatud nii Eesti kui teiste riikide silmapaistvate humanitaarteadlaste tööd.
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The chapter offers an overview of the history of intermediality, from ancient visual poetry to new media formats, lists various conceptions of “medium” dominating in the field, and explores a range of approaches to intermediality, from... more
The chapter offers an overview of the history of intermediality, from ancient visual poetry to new media formats, lists various conceptions of “medium” dominating in the field, and explores a range of approaches to intermediality, from literary-oriented to digitally oriented. It zooms in on the understanding of intermediality as a material practice and artistic event and provides a short outline of the further topics of research.
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In literary and art studies, experimentation is often considered as a playful and subversive phenomenon or a form of self-reflexivity. This article focuses on exploratory functions of experimentation and argues that narrative... more
In literary and art studies, experimentation is often considered as a playful and subversive phenomenon or a form of self-reflexivity. This article focuses on exploratory functions of experimentation and argues that narrative experimentation calls our thinking attention to reality through the techniques of manipulation, defamiliarization, and error amplification. Firstly, the focus on the exploratory or heuristic functions of fiction reveals that artistic experimentation is entangled with other experimental practices. Secondly, by focusing on the exploratory function of experimentation, I illustrate how fictional experiments, similarly to the experiments in science, philosophy, psychology, and other fields, shape our ideas of how the world works and reveal our social or ethical commitments.
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This paper explores how humans’ future engagements with their environments have been imagined in our present time of crisis and how these imaginings serve as evidence of current concerns and possible alternatives to existing practices.... more
This paper explores how humans’ future engagements with their environments have been imagined in our present time of crisis and how these imaginings serve as evidence of current concerns and possible alternatives to existing practices. The paper is based on the data collected in the international study “Will the World Never Be the Same? Letters from a Post-Corona Future” coordinated by the University of Twente. We discuss how everyday practices and experiences are influenced by the pandemic crisis and demonstrate that a re-elaboration of the Bakhtinian concept of “chronotope” can be used to describe the basic spatiotemporal configurations of human experience constituting the narrative dynamics of the representations of the future.
Research Interests: Space and Place, Environmental Studies, Domesticity, Ecology, Futures Studies, and 15 moreNarrative Analysis, Events, Social Imaginaries, Garden History, Phenomenology of Space and Place, Everyday Life, Narrative Studies, Future scenarios, Space and time, Chronotope, Anthropology of Roads, Personal Narratives, Pandemic, Internet, and City and Country
The chapter addresses conceptualizations of causality in contemporary science and art, particularly the “downward causality,” as theorized by biologists, philosophers, and social scholars. The chapter discusses recent interpretations of... more
The chapter addresses conceptualizations of causality in contemporary science and art, particularly the “downward causality,” as theorized by biologists, philosophers, and social scholars. The chapter discusses recent interpretations of “downward causality” as, ultimately, non-causal and its possible relations to the retrospective ascription of meaning in Danto’s “narrative sentences” and to C. S. Peirce's "abduction."
Research Interests: Semiotics, Narratology, Complexity, Philosophy of History, Evolution, and 15 moreCharles S. Peirce, Hermeneutics and Narrative, Narrative Analysis, Narrative Theory, Causality, Cognitive Style, Abduction, Narrative Studies, Catalyst, Downward causation, History and Historical Narratives, Art and Sciences, Cognitive Narrative Theory, Evolution and causality, and Narrative in science
It has been argued that the predictive processing framework alone cannot account for the work of imagination decoupled from the immediate perceptual input. This chapter explores some hypotheses and approaches to predictability and... more
It has been argued that the predictive processing framework alone cannot account for the work of imagination decoupled from the immediate perceptual input. This chapter explores some hypotheses and approaches to predictability and unpredictability in experimental aesthetics, psychology, and cognitive humanities as well as challenges and opportunities that art offers to the predictive processing framework. The chapter shows how complex aesthetic works turn the experience of failure into a shared knowledge.
Research Interests: Aesthetics, Art Theory, Memory (Cognitive Psychology), Embodied Cognition, Philosophy of Art, and 12 moreNarratology, Prediction, Complexity, Imagination, Narrative Theory, Literature and Philosophy, Frames, Downward causation, Narrative Complexity, Predictive Processing, Libet's Experiment, and Postdiction
The concept of the total work of art has a special relevance in defining the identity of early cinema and reveals the Wagnerian underpinnings of early film criticism and practices. Referring to film as a total work of art was a... more
The concept of the total work of art has a special relevance in defining the identity of early cinema and reveals the Wagnerian underpinnings of early film criticism and practices. Referring to film as a total work of art was a legitimizing gesture “denying the fundamental disunity and imbalance” of the field (Paulin). This chapter discusses relationships between the "total work of art" and cinematic realism as a paradoxical fusion of nature and artifice. The discussion builds on M. W. Smith’s conceptualization of the Gesamtkunstwerk that displays clashes between mechanical and organic form, reproduction and originality, technological and naturalistic utopias. In this chapter, the Gesamtkunstwerk is defined, more narrowly, as a recurrent impetus for integration of film constituents and vehicles in ever new (perceptual, aesthetic, technological) wholes, a conciliatory move towards overcoming a conflict of “nature” and “artifice” through their synthesis, but, concurrently, articulating their contested relations within historically changeable contexts. The paper discusses a variety of perspectives on "realism" beyond the correspondence theories or simple "mimesis."
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The chapter discusses cultural-evolutionary functions of attention and reveals interesting connections between Gibson's and Ingold's ecological philosophy and contemporary cognitive research on attention that both contribute to a better... more
The chapter discusses cultural-evolutionary functions of attention and reveals interesting connections between Gibson's and Ingold's ecological philosophy and contemporary cognitive research on attention that both contribute to a better understanding of narrative dynamics.
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In this paper we revisited the concept of “scenario” as a heuristic and narrative structure used in various disciplines as a prognostication and testing tool, but also as a tool for creative thinking and imaginative modeling. In contrast... more
In this paper we revisited the concept of “scenario” as a heuristic and narrative structure used in various disciplines as a prognostication and testing tool, but also as a tool for creative thinking and imaginative modeling. In contrast with practical scenarios or scripts with a limited range of relatively predictable outcomes, the outcomes of “imaginary scenarios” are not directly predictable from the initial conditions but, rather, obtained through incubation, tuning, imaginative elaboration or abductive insight. Imaginary scenarios are used as exploratory tools, enactments seeking to reach the realms and phenomena that are not captured by the available objective methods in historiography, anthropology, science and other fields. In this way, they function as semiotic scaffolds or tools for imaginative “groping for” and exploration of the world. The paper suggests that "fictionality" and "factuality" are contiguous and scalar phenomena, rather than clear-cut polar opposites, and distinguishes between different functional types of "fictionality" in accordance with its uses, from manipulative to experimental and exploratory.
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This chapter explores the poetics (narrative functions) and ‘politics’ (alignment with cultural and social contexts) of pronouns in polyvocal narration. It introduces the important referential capacity of pronouns and their role in... more
This chapter explores the poetics (narrative functions) and ‘politics’ (alignment with cultural and social contexts) of pronouns in polyvocal narration. It introduces the important referential capacity of pronouns and their role in developmental cognition, everyday discourses, and narrative world-making, considers the ways in which fiction exploits the referentiality of pronouns and offers an analysis of a specific mode of polyvocal narration called liminal deixis. Pronouns facilitate retrieval and revision of referential frames in the process of reading and their assimilation to reader’s own experiential world. Rather than being merely a manifestation of playfulness and experimentation, polyvocal narration is loaded with various cognitive and exploratory tasks. It problematises essentialist conceptions of identity and authority, challenges various types of totalising thought, and reveals tensions between the group and individual thinking.
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The chapter provides an overview of proto-structuralist trends in various disciplines and fields and focuses on the most prominent developments in mid and late century structuralisms in Prague, Paris, Tartu and other centers. It also... more
The chapter provides an overview of proto-structuralist trends in various disciplines and fields and focuses on the most prominent developments in mid and late century structuralisms in Prague, Paris, Tartu and other centers. It also discusses the role of structuralism and semiotics in a major epistemological turn of the 20th century and the meanings and functions of "structure" in various disciplines.
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The chapter explores the mediating role of the Tartu-Moscow school between East- Central and West European scholarly and intellectual traditions, its work of cultural gathering and maintaining the intellectual continuity despite the... more
The chapter explores the mediating role of the Tartu-Moscow school between East- Central and West European scholarly and intellectual traditions, its work of cultural gathering and maintaining the intellectual continuity despite the restrictions and pressures of Soviet censorship. The school emerged as a result of informal gatherings and publications in the mid-1960s. It brought together representatives of various disciplines (linguistics, literary and art studies, philosophy, history, mathematics and others). Despite the absence of a single metalanguage, the structural-semiotic perspective and broad conceptions of text and language served as integrative links. The chapter traces differing (phenomenological, functional, quantitative) research trajectories within the school and draws on the conceptions and frameworks whose impact has been long-lasting: the study of mythology and mythopoetics, linguistic typology, narratology, theory of secondary modelling systems (the languages of art), the study of “hypersemiotic” texts (urban semiotics) and poetics of behavior.
Research Interests: Semiotics, Intellectual History, Philosophy, Aesthetics, Art Theory, and 15 moreStructuralism (Literary Criticism), Narrative, Cultural Semiotics, Narratology, Literary Theory, Cognitive Semiotics, Semiotics Of Culture, Narrative Theory, Structuralism, Literary studies, Yuri Lotman, Jurij Lotman, Semiotic approach to culture, Tartu-Moscow School, and Juri Lotman
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Research Interests: Comparative Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Digital Media, Intermediality, Film Adaptation, and 13 moreFranz Kafka, Retold Fairy Tales, DH Lawrence, Transition, European literature, Motifs, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Myth Criticism, Contemporary Slovenian literature, Charles Perrault, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Epoetry, and Romain Rolland
In her article "Complexity, Hybridity, and Comparative Literature" Marina Grishakova discusses "implied hybridity" in discourses, narratives, aesthetic systems, and media as a form of emergent complexity — as distinct from hybridity... more
In her article "Complexity, Hybridity, and Comparative Literature" Marina Grishakova
discusses "implied hybridity" in discourses, narratives, aesthetic systems, and media as a form of emergent complexity — as distinct from hybridity resulting from the mixture or blending of heterogeneous elements. Grishakova argues that complexity theories widely used in social sciences and, to a lesser extent, in literary and cultural studies, suggest a possibility to avoid dualistic thinking and offer a flexible conceptual framework for comparative literature studies. Aesthetic systems, as part of society's "imaginary," respond to, and reorganize in response to, impulses received from other domains, but also modify their environments and forge new imaginaries. The difficulty of sustaining
the paradoxes of complexity presents a challenge for comparative literature scholars as part of the "positive uncertainty" of the discipline.
discusses "implied hybridity" in discourses, narratives, aesthetic systems, and media as a form of emergent complexity — as distinct from hybridity resulting from the mixture or blending of heterogeneous elements. Grishakova argues that complexity theories widely used in social sciences and, to a lesser extent, in literary and cultural studies, suggest a possibility to avoid dualistic thinking and offer a flexible conceptual framework for comparative literature studies. Aesthetic systems, as part of society's "imaginary," respond to, and reorganize in response to, impulses received from other domains, but also modify their environments and forge new imaginaries. The difficulty of sustaining
the paradoxes of complexity presents a challenge for comparative literature scholars as part of the "positive uncertainty" of the discipline.
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In recent years much has been said about the homogenizing and destructive impact of Soviet ideology on culture. Our hypothesis is that culture has its own defense mechanisms and works against ideology. Among them are 1) text transfer,... more
In recent years much has been said about the homogenizing and destructive impact of Soviet ideology on culture. Our hypothesis is that culture has its own defense mechanisms and works against ideology. Among them are 1) text transfer, governed by aesthetic regimes and involving randomness and unpredictable effects; 2) counter-ideological subcodes in literature and the arts; 3) discrepancies between sender’s and receiver’s subcodes. This paper highlights the special role of literature as a defense mechanism and a form of “otherness” within the ideological systems.
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The issues of the semiotics of observer and point of view are examined within a broad semiological and cognitive perspective. Structuralist narratology attempted at formal-linguistic classification of points of view to avoid... more
The issues of the semiotics of observer and point of view are examined within a broad semiological and cognitive perspective. Structuralist narratology attempted at formal-linguistic classification of points of view to avoid anthropomorphic-visual connotations inherent in narratological terminology. The alternative option would be using terms-metaphors as theoretical models. From the point of view of the observer, the process of text generation evolves in the double perspective of perception/ conception and interpretation. Instead of comparing different media in terms of a privileged metalanguage, it would be more fruitful to base the comparison on their cognitive characteristics.