ENGL 467 Storyworlds and Cognition applies advanced narrative theory to a range of fictional storyworlds across media, including texts in print (novels and short fiction) and in digital environments (digital fiction and video games). More specifically, it combines cognitive-based narrative theory and literary theory in order to identify the affordances and limitations of different modes and media, with particular focus on the representation of fictional minds.
We will consider the unique power of novels and textual discourse to tell of the cognitive functioning of others and the way in which this medium exploits a diverse range of techniques used to portray perspective and perception as well as describe dispositions, intentions, and emotions of characters.
Furthermore, we will consider how the participatory nature of digital fictions and the agency required in gameworlds requires a recalibration of more conventional notions of immersion in fictional worlds and identification with the characters that inhabit them.
In recognising the ways in which narratives across media represent consciousness and cognition, we aim to determine what such texts can tell us about the minds of actual readers, viewers, and players in turn.
| Paper title | Special Topic: Storyworlds and Cognition |
|---|---|
| Paper code | ENGL467 |
| Subject | English |
| EFTS | 0.1667 |
| Points | 20 points |
| Teaching period | Not offered in 2019 |
| Domestic Tuition Fees (NZD) | $1,120.06 |
| International Tuition Fees (NZD) | $4,439.89 |
- Prerequisite
- 72 points from ENGL 311-368, EURO 302
- Contact
- dave.ciccoricco@otago.ac.nz
- More information link
View more information on the Department of English and Linguistics' website
- Teaching staff
- Dr David Ciccoricco
- Paper Structure
- There is one 2-hour seminar per week.
- Textbooks
- *Titles subject to change
Print narratives:- James Joyce, "Penelope" (excerpt)
- Lidia Yuknavitch, "Male Lead"
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway [required for purchase]
- Lance Olsen, Nietzsche's Kisses [required for purchase]
- Nicholson Baker, Mezzanine [required for purchase]
- Graduate Attributes Emphasised
- Interdisciplinary perspective, Lifelong learning, Scholarship, Communication, Critical
thinking, Cultural understanding, Ethics, Information literacy, Research.
View more information about Otago's graduate attributes. - Learning Outcomes
- Students who successfully complete the paper will be able to:
- Gain an understanding of narrative as a "cultural form" across media
- Gain a familiarity with the working concepts and vocabulary of the field of narrative theory and "cognitive narratology" and apply that theoretical and conceptual knowledge to specific narrative texts in the form of an extended analytical essay
- Identify moments of convergence and divergence between what structures the experience of narratives in print (such as novels) on the one hand and those of digital fictions and gameworlds on the other
- Recognise the ways in which narratives across media both represent cognition (of fictional characters) and tell us something about the minds of actual readers, viewers, and players
- Acquire the technical and critical skills necessary to utilise blogs as a working repository of scholarly ideas and a participatory text open to peer critique
- Identify main currents of scholarship and claims in a variety of secondary sources in this emerging field and triangulate these claims in relation to other sources and readings
- Understand higher concepts that underpin the relationship between literature and media and demonstrate that understanding in written assessment
- Create, prepare and deliver an academic lecture on a chosen topic from the paper
