Experientiality In Narrative

This chapter, “Becoming-instrument: Thinking with Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation and Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects”, considers first-person narration and empathic enactment of fictional experience from posthumanist and enactivist perspectives. It introduces a new methodological device called “becoming-instrument”, which opens the reader’s experience to nonhuman influences. Building on Marco Caracciolo’s (2014) claims about empathic engagement with first-person narratives and Merja Polvinen’s (2012) notion of self-aware readerly engagement, the chapter’s author Kaisa Kortekallio argues that engagement with estranging first-person narratives, such as Annihilation and Hyperobjects, can work toward dissolving the certainty of the human subject and develop in its stead a model of subjectivity as “multiple and always-in-progress” (Sherryl Vint 2005).

Annihilation (2014) and Hyperobjects (2013) both invite the reader to enact the affective experientiality of their first-person narrators, but they also foreground the fictionality of those narrators. The chapter argues that affective experientiality and awareness of fictionality can intertwine in the readerly experience, and that the combination of affectivity and self-referentiality is characteristic of the “dark” or “weird” ecology VanderMeer and Morton advance in their texts. Finally, Kortekallio suggests that the dynamic of enactment applies not only to explicitly fictional narrative techniques but also to the rhetorical devices employed in non-fiction texts – such as the rhetorical “I” in Hyperobjects.

In the carousel of body and mind – experientiality in Kati Kovács´ graphic narrative Carousel

The article explores the medium-specific qualities of graphic narration for representing experientiality. Kati Kovács’ graphic narrative Karu selli (“Carousel”, 1996) utilizes a variety of experimental formal means for conveying the psychological development story of a jealous housewife. The theoretical point of departure is the concept of experientiality by Monica Fludernik who stresses the importance of experience as the defining quality of narratives. In order to analyze the formal structure of the book the writer applies the theory of spatio-topicality by Thierry Groensteen. As Groensteen suggests, the analysis of a graphic narrative must consider how the spatial layout of the pages is utilized in delivering the story and guiding the reader.
In Kovács’ book, the space of the page is used as a narrative layer to convey the experiences of the character. Analogous relation between the structural space of the page and the story space supports the movement of the character in the story world. In addition, Kovács’ book utilizes symbolic frames in order to represent the emotions of the character, or alternatively, the stance of the narrator. The reoccurring symbolic creatures in the frames, such as snakes, worms, and insects, emphasize the subjective nature of the story. At the end of the book, the reader finds out that most of the events have taken place only inside the mind of the protagonist. The mental carousel – to which the name refers – of the main character is represented by using a wide range of symbolic, verbal, visual and spatial means. By analyzing the book with narratological concepts and tools from comics theory the writer aims to show the potential of graphic narratives as an object of narratological analysis.

The essay introduces new methods for applied and “story-critical” narratology based on the analysis of a crowdsourced corpus in the Dangers of Narrative research project. This analysis suggests that the prototype model of narrative developed by first-wave cognitive narratologists resonates strongly with the popular understanding of what a narrative is and what it can do. Yet, more interestingly, the prototype model also reveals the pitfalls of narrative form in contemporary media. Reliance on individual, unverifiable experience is the most pertinent risk perceived by the informants participating in the crowdsourcing for “dubious” storytelling. The essay also sketches a new theory of viral storytelling spun around the “viral exemplum”, a concept created to describe the viral narrative prototype: a personal “true story” which is given undue representative and normative weight via online sharing.

'Reading Mutant Narratives' explores how narratives of environmental and personal transformation in contemporary ecological science fiction can develop more-thanhuman modes of embodied experience. More specifically, it attends to the conflicted yet potentially transformative experientiality of 'mutant narratives.' Mutant narratives are viewed as uneasy hybrids of human-centered and posthumanist science fiction
that contain potential for ecological understanding. Drawing on narrative studies and empirical reading studies, the dissertation begins from the premise that in suitable conditions, reading fiction may give rise to experiential change. The study traces and describes experiential changes that take place while reading works of science fiction.
The bodily, subjective and historical conditions of reading are considered alongside the generic contexts and narrative features of the fictional works studied.
As exemplary cases of mutant narratives, the study foregrounds the work of three American science fiction authors known for their critiques of anthropocentrism and for their articulations of more-than-human ecologies: Greg Bear, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Jeff VanderMeer. While much of contemporary fiction naturalizes embodied experience and hides their own narrative strategies, mutant narratives have the potential to defamiliarize readers’ notions of bodies and environments while also
estranging their embodied experience of reading fiction. As a theoretical contribution to science fiction studies, the study considers such a readerly dynamic in terms of 'embodied estrangement.'
Building on theoretical and practical work done in both embodied cognitive and posthumanist approaches to literature, the study shows how engagements with fictional narratives can, for their part, shape readers’ habitual patterns of feeling and perception. These approaches are synthesized into a method of close reading, 'performative enactivism,' that helps to articulate bodily, environmental, and more-thanhuman aspects of readerly engagement. Attending to such experiential aspects integrates ecological science fiction more deeply into the contemporary experiential situation of living with radical environmental transformation.

The article presents a new method for the analysis of short-form on-line storytelling by assuming an aestheticizing point of view on an everyday narrative practice. It examines the expressive affordances of Facebook status updates with the help of three prominent concepts derived from literary narratology and sociolinguistics: experientiality, simultaneity, and tellability. Conventions of the novel such as the epistolary form are juxtaposed with social media narration, in order to highlight both the intentional artistry and accidental aesthetics of status updates. The article supplements sociolinguistic studies by exposing the existentialist, self-consciously non-communicative facet of Facebook storytelling.

The reception of Jerome Bruner's extensive theoretical work on narrative has been paradoxical. A substantial part of the commentary literature has confined itself to legitimatory uses of his texts, writers too often being contented with repeating a selection of Bruner's best known theses. A critical reception in the meaning of testing, challenging, and further processing of Bruner's thought has remained rather sporadic. Perhaps Bruner looms too large to actually be seen. His theory of folk psychology and the elements of canonicity and breach in his narrative theory constitute a major exception to this tendency, they being extensively discussed by

This paper contends that previous research on the experience of reading literary journalism has predominantly been focused on the experience of the ideal, implied and/or interpellated reader. Scholarly discussions about the qualitative differences between reading fiction and non-fiction are usually theoretical or based on close readings where the analyses are projected on to a generalised readership. However, recent developments in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and cogni-tive narratology are opening avenues for qualitative and quantitative research into the experience of reading literary journalism. This article takes some tentative steps towards exploring the nature of "experien-tiality" for readers by asking questions of emerging research in order to further articulate the "power" of narrative non-fiction.

The paper examines the cut-up works of Dada-poet Tristan Tzara, American writer William S. Burroughs(1914-1997), and Russian writer Pavel Ulitin (1918-1986). It explores the transformations of the cut-up form in different socio-cultural contexts while focusing on interpretations of narrative conceptualization of the writing experience as reflected in the texts of Ulitin and Burroughs. The forms of this narrativization are examined based on the conception of ‘experientiality’ introduced by Monika Fludernik (1996) and the cognitive approach proposed by Alan Palmer (2004). In my comparative case-study I seek to demonstrate how and why the cut-ups form, used as a device as well, conveys the specificity of contemporary writing at its best.

Interdisciplinary academic discussion has been gripped by an increasing awareness of its incurably anthropocentric perception of the world. Although everyone knows from everyday experience the epistemological impossibility of fully understanding a fellow human being – let alone a bat’s experience of being a bat (Nagel 2010) – it seems ever more restrictive and unethical to not even try. More or less sincere attempts at imagining the perspectives of various Others have, of course, always been the aim of fictional narratives in different media. In literary studies, some have expressed skepticism towards literature’s possibilities of portraying genuinely non-human experience, but could comics, with their multimodal expressive arsenal, do any better? Due to their stylized, overtly “made” visuality, graphic narratives have rarely been regarded as objective, transparent windows to the real world. Rather, they seem to lend themselves for crafting and presenting strange, “anti-mimetic” experiences and characters (Fehrle 2011). Indeed, the prominence of fantastical genres and medial experimentation in the tradition of Western comics has molded many classic graphic novels into virtual
embodiments of the interests expressed by unnatural narratologists. According to unnatural narratology, the greatest virtue of fiction is its ability to go beyond what is real, natural, or human, and thus, to expand the readers’ views of the world (Alber et al. 2013). Arguably, many comics from Little Nemo (1905–1926) to The Sandman (1989–1996) have strived to do just that: to leave single, conventional ideas of time, space, and humanity behind.
Neil Gaiman recently penned an unexpected prequel for his cult comic. The Sandman: Overture (2015) – illustrated by J. H. Williams III and colored by Dave Stewart – recounts the mysterious astral catastrophe that had left Dream, the god-like protagonist, exhausted and helpless for the opening act of the main series. The human readers might be surprised to find that this fantastical chain of events, which threatens to end the entire universe, does not involve a single human character. Instead, the comics’ narration employs several, mostly visual techniques to suggest perspectives that are, in one way or another, non-human, alien, or estranging. In my presentation, I examine these techniques and their possible effects on the reader by utilizing cognitive comics analysis and notions of unnatural narratology. To what extent does this comic, made by human hands for human readers, succeed in imagining an apocalypse that is neither caused nor prevented by Homo Sapiens? In which ways can anthropocentric narration be circumvented, and how does it, nevertheless, sneak in through the back door?

Although contemporary philosophy of history has been instrumental in revolutionizing the study of Graeco-Roman historiography, the important results of these studies – and the theoretical models that have emerged from them – have had little reciprocal effect. My paper thus seeks to demonstrate what classical historiography can offer philosophers of history, broadly defined. My talk will focus on the Graeco-Roman rhetorical concept of enargeia and explore its relevance to contemporary discussions of experientiality that have recently preoccupied Ankersmit, Carr, Runia, and others. Enargeia is described in ancient treatises as vividness of language that “places the material before the readers’ eyes”, makes them feel that they have encountered the historical characters face to face, and recreates in them the emotional reactions supposedly felt by those who actually experienced the events described. In short, it is the quality in the text that makes the past seem present, and its purpose, in addition to entertaining the audience, is to convey a more immersive account of the past. For an ancient Greek or Roman audience, whose conceptions of historical truth (and fiction) were far more fluid and flexible than our own, enargeia does not necessarily pose serious ethical or metaphysical challenges. For us, however, it raises a number of important questions. What might classical historians have meant by ‘experiencing’ the past, and how does that resemble contemporary discussions of the phenomenology of history? What might cognitive science teach us about the mechanisms by which the process of reading and remembering may evoke sharp emotional responses? Should historians deliberately seek to mobilize readers’ emotions? If so, which emotions, and to what end? Such questions are not merely theoretical but have urgent ethical and practical implications: given that history and memory are intrinsically linked to identity and politics, the emotions historians mobilize can lead to concrete and material consequences. What role then should affective responsion have in contemporary historical writing?

Arkikokemus ei helposti saa kiinni kaukana sulavista jäätiköistä tai kapitalistisista tuotantoketjuista päivittäisten appelsiiniemme takana. Antroposeenikeskustelussa kuuluu usein väitettävän, että tällaiset ilmiöt ovat ruumiillisen kokemuksen "tuolla puolen", liian suuria, hitaita, hajaantuneita tai kaukaisia. Mutta entä jos kokemuksen heikkous onkin vain yrityksen puutetta? Entä jos oleellinen kysymys ei olekaan "mitä kokemukselle tapahtuu" vaan "mitä kokemukselle voidaan tehdä"? Spekulatiivinen fiktio, vaikkapa Paolo Bacigalupin The Windup Girl, voi auttaa tekemään kokemuksesta oudompaa ja siten auttaa pääsemään kiinni antroposeenin ilmiöihin.

The present article elucidates and elaborates on the key theoretical and analytical positions developed in my doctoral dissertation on character engagement, based on the microanalysis of digital storytelling in the online reception of Breaking Bad (Sorokin 2018a). The article (1) gives a general synopsis of the American television series Breaking Bad; (2) provides an analysis of the empirical material in order to illustrate the validity of the theoretical conceptualization; and (3) further teases out the underlying theoretical implications. By design, the theoretical discussion builds on the empirical analysis and focuses, for the purposes of this article, specifically on three core notions and concepts in  the  previously  developed  theoretical  framework. I use the concept  of narrative person to counter the mechanistic, internalist approach to the “fictional character”. Under my treatment, a narrative person is a sovereign agency by whom the audience is gradually absorbed, as opposed to being absorbed in it. Naturally, such assumptions undermine the universal applicability of internalist models of narrative, in general, and experiential character engagement, in particular. Hence, realitization is envisioned to highlight the discursive practice of “realmaking” in the articulative process of character engagement for the sake of communal discussion. Finally, the concept of co-elaborative creative vernacular indicates communally developed and communicated other-directed
distributed sense-making, which is commonsensical and narratively co-elaborated and grounded in everyday language and conceptual thinking which is materialist in character.
Keywords: everyday imaginaries, narratively “tooled” language, narrative person, pragmatics of narrative experientiality, realitization, realmaking, social materialism of narrative, vernacular


Artikkel tutvustab ja arendab edasi minu doktoriväitekirja teoreetilisi ja
analüütilisi võtmepositsioone. Väitekirjas keskendusin narratiivse tegelaskujuga suhestumise  uurimisele  teleseriaali  “Halvale teele”  netiretseptsioonis väljenduva digitaalse jutuvestmise mikroanalüüsi põhjal. Artikkel on jagatud kolme omavahel üsna tihedalt seotud ossa. Esimeses räägin mõne sõnaga üleüldiselt ameerika teleseriaalist “Halvale teele” (Breaking Bad). Teises toon välja pakutava teoreetilise raamistu võtmemõisted ja pakun lühidat neist tõukuvat empiirilise
allikmaterjali analüüsi, mis on ühtlasi mõeldud analüütiliselt illustreerima kolmanda alaosa teoreetilise kontseptualiseerimise vettpidavust. Seega on artikli kolmas alaosa eelnevaga otseselt seotud, kuna skitseerin analüüsist juhinduvalt teoreetilised järelmid, pearõhuga eelnevalt välja töötatud mõistestikul. Eeskätt keskendun neist kolmele: narratiivne persoon, pärisustamine (realitization), ja kaastoimeliselt arenduv loominguline rahvakeel (co-elaborative creative vernacular). Narratiivse persooni kontseptsioon on mõeldud vastukaaluks mehhanistlikule, seespidisele teadvussõltvuslikule (internalist-mind-dependant) nägemusele fiktsionaalse karakteri kogemisest. Minu käsitluses on narratiivne persoon suveräänne – oma eluilma asustav – toimija (agency
), kellest – otsekui teisest pärisinimesest – vaatajad järk-järgult üha enam kütkestatud on (absorbed by), selmet nad temasse “neelduks” (
"absorbed in”) või end temaga samastaks (identify with). Eelnimetatud baaseelduste valguses muutub aga küsitavaks seespidiste kogemuslikkusmudelite – kas siis laiemalt narratiivi või kitsamalt karakteritega suhestumise – universaalne teaduslik rakendatavus. Siinkohal tulebki täpsustava mõistetasandina mängu pärisustamise kontseptsioon. Sellega tõstan esile pärisusloome (realmaking) diskursiivset praktikat, mis ilmneb karakteritega suhestumise väljendusvormelite pinnalt eeskätt just (digi)kogukondliku – ühistoimeliselt kaasarendatava (co-elaborative) ja selliselt kaasarenduva – arutelu tingimustes. Antud arutelu väljendub (digi)materiaalsete kommentaaritekstide  ja  foorumipostituste  kui  narrtseptide (narrcept; narratiiv+pertsept;  ingl  narr[ative]  +  [per]cept[ion]),  s.o  narratiivselt  seadistatud  tajuväljundite  näol.  Eelöeldust tulenevalt kasvabki pärisusloome mõiste välja kolmandast instrumentaalsest kontseptsioonist – nimelt ühistoimeliselt kaasarenduvast loomingulisest
rahvakeelest. Antud käsitusega piiritlen kogukondlikult edastatavat ja edendatavat teise-suunalist (other-directed) jagatud tähendusloomet, mis kaasarendub narratiivselt, tuginedes sotsiaal-materialistliku  iseloomuga ja argitarkusliku põhistusega igapäevakeelekasutusel ja vastavalaadsetel mõtlemisprotsessidel.
Märksõnad: “Halvale teele”, igapäevakeel ja -kujut(l)used, narratiivi sotsiaalmaterialism, narratiivne persoon, narratiivse kogemuslikkuse  pragmaatika, narratiivselt “seadistatud” keelekasutus, pärisustamine, pärisusloome