Unnatural and Cognitive Perspectives on Narrative (A Theory Crossover)

This special issue opens a conversation between two key strands of contemporary narrative theory—the “cognitive” approach, which draws on conceptual models of the mind sciences, and the “unnatural” approach, which foregrounds stories that are unconventional, experimental, puzzling. In jointly authored articles, representatives of unnatural and cognitive narratology debate core issues in literary theory: fictional minds, fictionality, immersion and defamiliarization, interpretation, events, mimesis, narrativity, narration and focalization, and narrative across media.

Contributors: Jan Alber, Miranda Anderson, Lars Bernaerts, Marco Caracciolo, David Ciccoricco, Astrid Ensslin, Dan Irving, Stefan Iversen, Christopher D. Kilgore, Rikke Andersen Kraglund, Karin Kukkonen, Maria Mäkelä, Irina Marchesini, Henrik Skov Nielsen, Merja Polvinen, Brian Richardson, ?Jeff Thoss, Emily T. Troscianko, Steven Willemsen