Fiction and Art

The nature of fiction has long been debated across the humanities, and is of considerable importance for philosophical aesthetics, literary theory, narratology and the history of ideas. This volume offers something entirely new: a selection of multidisciplinary perspectives on fiction written by an international team of contributors at the forefront of their fields, providing a spectrum of approaches to compare and contrast. This volume, divided between historical, cognitive, aesthetic and non-western approaches, targets a wide range of topics, including mathematics, history, religion and metaphysics. This is a seminal volume on one of the most important topics in the humanities.

Ananta Sukla is a former Professor and Head of the Department of English at Sambalpur University and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Aesthetics, University of Uppsala, Sweden. His publications include Art and Representation (2001), Art and Experience (2003), Art and Essence (2003), and Art and Expression (2011).

Dedication Acknowledgements Introduction Ananta Sukla I. Historical Perspectives 1. Fiction's False Start David Konstan 2. The Poetic Pragmatics of Greek Myths: Referential Fiction and Ritual Performance Claude Calame II. Interdisciplinary Perspectives 3. Fictionality of the Absolute: On Truth and Lie in the Metaphysical and Aesthetic Sense Peter Heron 4. Mathematical Fictions Jody Azzouni 5. Why Suicide Bomber Bombs: Fictionality of Rituals Ivan Strenski 6. Fiction and History Allen Speight 7. Cognitive Value of (Literary) Fiction Robert Stecker 8. Fiction, Cognition, and Confusion Jukka Mikkonen 9. Epistemology and Fiction: Thought Experiments in Personal Identity Aleks Zarnitsyn 10. Semantics of Fiction: Naming and Metonymy Carl Ehrett 11. The Fictional Truth: Nonfiction and Narration Sarah Worth 12. Fiction as a Creative Process Amanda Garcia 13. Fiction and Emotion: The Relation of Consciousness to the Economy of Evolution Samuel Kimball III. Aesthetic Perspectives 14. How to Reach Fictional Worlds Lubomír Dolezel 15. Literature, Fictionality, and the Illusion of Self-Presence Samuel Kimball 16. Judicial Fiction and Literary Fiction: The Example of the Factum Christian Biet 17. Pictorial Fiction: Imagination and Power of Picasso's Images Charles Altieri 18. Sonic Fiction: The Truth in Music Geraldine Finn 19. Gestural Fiction: Dance Renee Conroy 20. Fictionality of theTheatrical Performance Roderick Nicholls 21. Fictionality in Film and Photography David Fenner 22. Fictions Sharing Subjectivity Rob van Gerwen IV. Oriental Perspectives 23. Fundamentals of Fiction in Indian Mythology, Poetics and Dramaturgy Ananta Sukla 24. Fiction in the Chinese Mythical and Literary Traditions Amy Lee 25. Truth and Fiction in the Japanese Narrative: Sakaguchi Ango's Critique of the I-Novel Robert Steen 26. Fiction in the Medieval Arabic Literary Tradition Arkady Nedel A Concluding Note Ananta Sukla Integrated Bibliography and Works Cited Index