This thesis starts from the observation that, while it is common for commentators to divide postmodern fiction into two general fields – one experimental and anti-mimetic, the other cautiously mimetic, there remains a fairly significant field of postmodern texts that use largely mimetic approaches but represent worlds that are categorically distinct from actuality. This third group is even more pronounced if popular culture and “commercial” fiction, in particular sf and fantasy, are taken into account. Additionally, the third category has the interesting characteristic that the texts within this group very often generate unusual loyalty among its fans. Based on a renewed investigation of the main genre critics in postmodern fiction, the first chapter suggests a tripartite division of postmodern fiction, into formalist, metamimetic, and transreferetial texts. These are provisionally circumscribed by their reference worlds: formalist fiction attempts to derail its own capacity for presenting a world; metamimetic fiction presents mediated versions of worlds closely reminiscent of actuality; and transreferential fiction sets its narrative in worlds that are experienced as such, but are clearly distinct from actuality. If transreferential fiction deals with alternate worlds, it also very often relies on the reader’s immersion in the fictional world to provide unique, often subversive, fictional experiences. This process can be identified as the exploration of the fictional world, and it is very often guided so as to be experienced as a virtual reality of sorts. If transreferential texts are experienced as interactive in this sense, it is likely that they convey experiences and insights in ways different from either of the other two strands of postmodern fiction. In order to investigate the interactive experience provided by these texts, an extended conceptual and analytical set is proposed, rooted primarily in Ricoeurian hermeutics and possible-worlds theory. These two main theoretical approaches approximately correspond to the temporal and the spatial dimensions of texts, respectively. Much of the power of these texts rooted in the care they take to guide the reader through their fictional worlds and the experiences offered by the narrative, often at the hand of fictioninternal ‘guides’. These theoretical approaches are supplement by sf theoretical research and by Aleid Fokkema’s study of postmodern character. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 apply the theoretical toolset to three paradigmatic transreferential texts: sf New Wave author M John Harrison’s Viriconium sequence; Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy; and Jeff Noon’s Vurt and Pollen, texts that have much in common with cyberpunk but which make much more extensive use of formalist techniques. Each chapter has a slightly different main focus, matching the text in question, respectively: aesthetic parameters and worldcreation strategies of transreferential fiction; close “guidance” of the reader and extrapolation; and virtual reality and identity games. The final chapter presents the findings from the research conducted in the initial study. The findings stem from the central insight that transreferential texts deploy a powerful suit of mimetic strategies to maximise immersion, but simultaneously introduce a variety of interactive strategies. Transreferential fiction balances immersion against interactivity, often by selectively maximising the mimesis of some elements while allowing others to be presented through formalist strategies, which requires a reading mode that is simultaneously immersive and open to challenging propositions. A significant implication of this for critical studies – both literary and sf – is that the Barthesian formalist reading model is insufficient to deal with transreferential texts. Rather, texts like these demand a layered reading approach which facilitates immersion on a first reading and supplements it critically on a second. The final chapter further considers how widely and in what forms the themes and strategies found in the preceding chapters recur in other texts from the proposed transreferential supergenre, including sf, magic realist and limitpostmodernist texts. / Thesis (PhD (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

This thesis examines the traditions of textual interaction that impact the forms of reading engaged in with fanfiction. This thesis continues by exploring how self-insertion fanfiction functions as a medium through which authors express their reading of the text primary through the emotional impact of the text through wish fulfillment, and the interaction of their cultural moment and the text. Furthermore, it argues that self-insertion fanfiction is a mode of literary critique in which the author acknowledges the effect of a mediated world on their perception of self and reality. Through this recognition of a constructed self, the author rejects the attractiveness of objective analysis, allowing them to critique the work from their subject position influenced by the text.

Une nouvelle tentative pour faire face au défi sceptique est menée depuis une quarantaine d’années. Cette tentative repose sur une théorie de la connaissance centrée sur la notion d’alternatives pertinentes. La thèse se propose de montrer les faiblesses de cette théorie, même lorsqu’elle s’appuie sur l’appareillage des mondes possibles, et suggère que le scepticisme demeure la meilleure position épistémologique. Dans le premier chapitre on passe en revue une série de difficultés liées au sujet des alternatives pertinentes et l'on essaye d'argumenter en faveur de l'idée qu'il n'y a peut-être pas, finalement, de moyens en quelque sorte objectifs pour établir quelles sont les alternatives pertinentes relativement à une situation quelconque. À partir du deuxième chapitre, il est procédé à une analyse critique des tentatives de certains auteurs qui se sont servis, pour élaborer leurs propres conceptions bien précises, du langage des mondes possibles. Dans le deuxième chapitre, l'on se concentre surtout sur la question du degré de proximité qu'un monde possible donné doit exhiber pour être considéré comme suffisamment proche du monde actuel et l'on essaye de montrer qu'il n’est probablement pas possible de tracer d'une manière non arbitraire une ligne de démarcation entre ces mondes possibles qu’on peut ignorer et ceux qu’on ne peut ignorer dans nos attributions de connaissance. Dans le troisième chapitre, l'on se concentre surtout sur la question des critères qui devraient guider nos évaluations de proximité et l'on essaye de montrer le caractère discutable de n'importe quelle règle visant à établir quels seraient ces critères-là. / Over the last forty years, a new attempt to answer to the skeptic challenge has been proposed. This attempt is based on a theory of knowledge, which is grounded on the notion of relevant alternative. My dissertation aims to show the problems of such a theory, even when formulated in terms of possible worlds, and suggests that in the end skepticism remains the best epistemological option. In the first chapter, I will offer a discussion of the issue of relevant alternatives, and I will argue in favor of the idea that perhaps there are no objective criteria to establish which are the relevant alternatives with respect to a certain given situation. In the second chapter, I will propose a critical analysis of the attempts of some philosophers to formulate their own proposals in the language of possible worlds. In particular, I will focus on the issue of the proximity degree that a certain possible world must have in order to be considered as sufficiently closed to the real world, and I will try to show that perhaps it is not possible to draw a sharp line of demarcation between those possible worlds that we can ignore and those that we must take into account in our attribution of knowledge. In the third chapter, I will critically discuss the criteria that should guide our evaluations about proximity, and I will show the problematic aspects of any rule aimed to establish which these criteria in effect should be.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T15:06:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RENATO MENDES ROCHA.pdf: 735741 bytes, checksum: 6559707c78ce13d85086e58b691dd7f3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-08-30 / In this dissertation we will defend Lewis Modal Realism (LMR), i.e., the metaphysical hypothesis about the real existence of a plurality of worlds. We will try to show the pragmatic character of Lewis arguments in support of this metaphysics of possible worlds. In this sense, we approximate Lewis (1986) and Quine (1960) and we aim to show that Lewis uses criteria for taking ontological decisions similar to those defended by Quine. These criteria are: simplicity of formulation, theoretical economy and distrust in purely intuitive criteria as only guide for Philosophy. To accomplish our intention, we divided the text in three chapters. In the first we present the philosophical benefits of LMR that demonstrate the theoretical utility of possible-worlds talk. These benefits are related to important concepts in Philosophy of Language and Epistemology, such as, Modality, Counterfactuals and a uniform treatment to Properties and Propositions. The second chapter is divided into two parts. At first we present the philosophical background we believe is related to Lewis philosophy. A neo-humean scenario and the resumption of metaphysics discussion in contemporary analytic philosophy compose this background. In the second part we present three fundamental thesis formulate by Lewis the consistence of his Modal Realism: concreteness, isolation and plenitude. In the third and latter chapter we discuss two criticism of LMR: (a) David Armstrong & Peter Forrest (1984) and (b) Susan Haack (1977). Each of these papers present criticism from distinct points of view. The first aims to identify a paradox in the metaphysics of possible worlds, and the latter focuses on semantics aspects of LMR. Finally, we show Lewis reply to objection (a) and that argument (b) could be inserted as an incredulous stare on LMR, and that it consists on a petition principi. / Nessa dissertação defenderemos o Realismo Modal de David Lewis (RML), ou seja, a hipótese metafísica acerca da existência real de uma pluralidade de mundos. A defesa que apresentaremos procura evidenciar o caráter pragmático dos argumentos a favor dessa metafísica dos mundos possíveis. Nesse sentido, aproximaremos a filosofia de David Lewis (1986) a de W. V. O. Quine (1960) e procuraremos mostrar que Lewis utiliza critérios para tomada de decisões ontológicas semelhantes aos defendidos por Quine. Esses critérios são: a simplicidade de formulação, a economia teórica e a desconfiança de critérios meramente intuitivos como guias para a Filosofia. Para cumprir nosso objetivo, estruturamos a dissertação em três capítulos. No primeiro apresentamos benefícios filosóficos do RML que demonstram a utilidade teórica do idioma dos mundos possíveis. Esses benefícios estão relacionados a noções importantes para a Filosofia da Linguagem e a Teoria do Conhecimento tais como: Modalidades, Contrafatuais, e um tratamento uniforme para Propriedades e Proposições. O segundo capítulo divide-se em duas partes. Na primeira traçamos um pano de fundo filosófico que acreditamos estar relacionado à filosofia de Lewis. Compõem esse pano de fundo: um cenário que identificamos como neo-humeano e a retomada de discussões metafísicas na Filosofia Analítica Contemporânea. Na segunda parte apresentamos três teses formuladas por Lewis para garantir a consistência e a coerência de seu Realismo Modal: a Concretude, o Isolamento e a Plenitude. No terceiro capítulo discutimos duas críticas ao RML: (a) David Armstrong & Peter Forrest (1984) e (b) Susan Haack (1977). Cada um desses artigos apresenta uma crítica diferente. A primeira procura identificar um paradoxo na metafísica dos mundos possíveis e a segunda concentra-se em aspectos semânticos do RML. Por fim, mostramos como a objeção em (a) é refutada por Lewis e como o argumento em (b) poderia se inserir no grupo de críticas que Lewis classifica como um olhar incrédulo sobre o RML. Por isso, concluímos que esse olhar consiste em uma petição de princípio.

(in English): Our thesis is titled The Open Work? Swann in love and it's film adaptation. Our primary aim is not only to summarize the most famous theories about the openness of the work but also to apply these theories directly to the book Swann in love and subsequent comparison of the literary and film adaptation of the story. We have divided the thesis into three chapters. The first one is methodological overview. In our thesis we will deal with several phenomena from the field of literary science. We will be interested mainly in the character of the reader and the author and the different roles attributed to them by different theories. We will look closely at the differences between the empiric and model reader and the author, deal with the openness of the work, the difference between the subjects of the author, the narrator and the main characters, and we will also look into the theory of fictional worlds. We chose the work of Umberto Eco as a theoretical basis, but we also draw some ideas from the work of other literary theorists. In the second chapter, these theories will be applied to the specific passages of the book Swann in love. Let's get into the fictional world of Swan's love and watch the surroundings. We will try to conclude what the reader of this work should be, what mistaken...

Ses principaux lecteurs n’ont cessé de concevoir le Haut Livre du Graal comme un roman des confins de la barbarie. L’éclatement des cadres de l’écriture arthurienne est prégnant dans ses épisodes les plus emblématiques, qui révèlent un hiatus irréductible entre une « haute écriture » et l’exaltation de la matérialité des êtres. Le roman semble soumis à une double postulation vers le haut et le bas, vers les convulsions du monde sublunaire et une mystique aussi présente que ténue. L’étude des manifestations et senefiances de la mort s’applique à saisir l’écriture de cet entre-deux, tout en privilégiant l’approfondissement de deux traits majeurs : la dimension visuelle inhérente à la représentation de la mort et les procédés d’écriture propres à esquisser les linéaments d’une « écriture funèbre ». Le paradigme visuel relaie la puissance évocatoire des morts narrées, tandis que la dominante funeste du récit semble être l’un des gages les plus viables de l’unité d’une œuvre dont les structures narratives se dérobent. Le parcours herméneutique de cette étude considère tout d’abord le vocabulaire de la mort, avant d’aborder les circonstances de l’instant mortel, les deux versants spirituel et temporel de la mort, et le lien toujours puissant qui unit les vivants et les morts. Après des considérations à la fois stylistiques, rhétoriques, historiques et anthropologiques, la deuxième partie déplace vers le champ de la poétique du texte la problématique d’une mort fondamentalement ubiquitaire. / The main scholars always depicted the High Book of the Grail as a novel which borders on barbarism. The bursting of the frames of arthurian writing is significant in its most iconic episodes as well, which reveal a huge gap between "High Scripture" and a glorification of the materiality of beings. The novel seems based on a double postulation up and down, towards materiality and spirituality. The study of events and senefiances of death applies to grasp the writing of in-between, while emphasizing the study of two major elements: the inherent visual dimension to the representation of death and methods of its own writing which sketches the outlines of a "funeral writing." Visual paradigm relays the evocative power of the dead narrated while that fateful dominant narrative seems to be one of the most efficient guarantee of the unit of a work whose structure is relevent to illusion or arcana. The hermeneutic thought process of this study considers at first the vocabulary of death, before addressing the circumstances of the "instant mortel", the two spiritual and temporal sides of death, the always powerful unity of the living and the dead. After some stylistic considerations, as well as rhetorical, historical and anthropological ones, the last chapters move to the field of poetics, in a world where death appears fundamentally ubiquitous.

The growing accessibility of quantum mechanics and chaos theory over the past eighty years has opened a new mode of world-creating for dramatists. An increasingly large collection of plays organize their fictional worlds around such scientific concepts as quantum uncertainty and chaotic determinism. This trend is especially noticeable within dramatic texts that emphasize a fictional, not material or metafictional, engagement. These plays construct fictional worlds that reflect the increasingly strange actual world. The dominant theoretical approaches to fictional worlds unfairly treat these plays as primarily metafictional texts, when these texts construct fictional experiences to speculate about everyday ramifications of living in a post-quantum mechanics world. This thesis argues that these texts are best understood as examples of speculative fiction drama, and they speculate about the changes to our understanding of reality implied by contemporary scientific discoveries. Looking at three plays as exemplary case studies—John Mighton’s Possible Worlds (1990), Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1993), and Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul (2001)—this thesis demonstrates that speculative fiction theories can be adapted into fictional worlds analysis, allowing us to analyze these plays as fiction-making texts that offer nonclassical aesthetic experiences. In doing so, this thesis contributes to speculative fiction studies, fictional worlds studies, and the dynamic interdisciplinary dialogue between aesthetic and scientific discourses.

Les arguments de concevabilité sont des arguments philosophiques reposant sur le principe selon lequel tout ce qui est concevable est possible. Cette thèse se propose d'évaluer à un niveau général cette forme d'argumentation en s'appuyant sur des exemples historiques et contemporains. les arguments de concevabilité, quelle que soit la position philosophique qu'ils visent à défendre, soulèvent en effet des difficultés qui leur sont communes et ont trait principalement (i) à la définition de la notion de possibilitée, (ii) à la définition de la notion de concevabilité, et (iii) à la légitimité de l'inférence allant de l'une à l'autre. Le travail consiste d'abord (chapitres 1-3) à construire la catégorie que constituent les arguments de concevabilité en spécifiant notamment le genre de thèses philosophiques qu'ils peuvent chercher à établir. Une fois précisés les objectifs que les arguments de concevabilité peuvent viser, il s'engage (chapitres 4-8) dans l'examen de savoir si les ressources fournies par Ia concevabilité et l'inférence menant du concevable vers le possible suffisent à les atteindre. Pour ce faire, le travail propose une analyse détaillée des différentes formes de possibilité (chapitres 4-5) et de concevabilité (chapitres 6-8) impliquées dans ces arguments. II aboutit à une position dite sceptique modérée au sujet de la validité de cette forme d'argumentation, sur la base de la démonstration que, pour les thèses philosophiques qui nécessitent l'etablissement d'une possibilité métaphysique, la concevabilitée s'avère être un guide insuffisamment fiable, quelle que soit la manière dont on comprend la concevabilité. Mais il défend aussi l'idée que le fait que les arguments de concevabilité ne soient pas toujours concluants n'implique pas qu'ils sont depourvus d'utilité argumentative: car ils nous obligent à clarifier les implications modales de nos conceptions philosophiques et la manière dont nous pouvons raisonner au sujet de ces implications. Cette conception des arguments de concevabilité est appliquée pour finir à la clarification d'un chapitre essentiel de la philosophie de la cognition contemporaine relatif à la possibilité de fournir une explication naturaliste (physicaliste) de la conscience phénoménale, et ou un argument de concevabilité qui a fait couler beaucoup d'encre, dit argument des zombis, joue un rôle essentiel. / Conceivability arguments are philosophical arguments which rely crucially on the principle according to which conceivability entails possibility. This dissertation provides an analysis and a critical assessment of this kind of argumentative strategy, on the basis of contemporary and historical examples. Various possible explanations of the notion of conceivability are considered and it is argued that the inference from conceivability to possibility does not enable conceivability arguments to reach all their intended conclusions, especially those pertaining to substantial metaphysical issues.

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This diploma thesis explores the theory of possible worlds and its relation to broadcast during the coronavirus pandemic. It perceives news, especially broadcast, as a possible world. Using narrative analysis, this thesis describes the characteristics of two possible worlds that arose during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic on Czech Television and television Prima. The main goal of this research is to examine what kind of possible worlds have these two TV stations constructed in their main news programs and to point out how these two possible worlds differed. My diploma thesis should primarily contribute to a clear comparison of how the depiction of the coronavirus pandemic differed by individual television channels in the first half of 2020.