1,720,982 research outputs found
Alien Overtures : Speculating about Nonhuman Experiences with Comic Book Characters
No full textThe fourth chapter, “Alien Overtures: Speculating about Nonhuman Experiences with Comic Book Characters”, continues the experiential line of inquiry introduced in the previous chapter but recombines it with the multimodal storytelling of comics and the tricky, anthropomorphizing concept of the fictional character. More specifically, the article penned by Essi Varis explores – first theoretically and then through a cognitive analysis of Neil Gaiman and J. H. Williams III’s fantastical graphic novel The Sandman: Overture (2015) – whether markedly nonhuman comic book characters are able to convey, or at least gesture toward, nonhuman experiences.
On the one hand, cognitive narrative theory has repeatedly underlined that the ways we think and speak about narratives in general – and characters in particular – are highly subjective and, thus, heavy with human bias. On the other hand, the interactions between reading minds and experimental or imaginative texts can make these limits of our human subjectivity more visible, and even counteract our automatic human-centric assumptions through different techniques of defamiliarization and speculation. The verbal-pictorial hybridity of comics, which enables displaying countless different amalgamations of human and nonhuman traits and viewpoints, is an especially flexible tool for such explorations.peerReviewe
Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman : Striving for More Ethical Cohabitation
No full textAs Donna Haraway (2015, 160) argues, “[i]t matters which stories tell stories, which concepts think concepts. Mathematically, visually, and narratively, it matters which figures figure figures, which systems systemize systems”. The time has come for human cultures to seriously think, to diligently conceptualize, and to earnestly fabulate about all the nonhuman critters we share our world with, and to consider how to strive for more ethical cohabitation.peerReviewe
Graphic Human Experiments: Frankensteinian Cognitive Logics of Characters in Vertigo Comics and Beyond
No full textThis article-based doctoral dissertation explores how fictional characters unfold and
function in the cognitive interactions and tensions that take place between texts and
readers. The focus is on multimodal characters of graphic narratives. Accordingly, the
theoretical framework combines some of the central insights of comics studies with
various theoretical views on fictional characters and various premises of cognitive
narrative studies. The analyzed series were picked from the corpus of DC Comics’
Vertigo imprint, which publishes experimental, intertextual series for adult readers.
One of them, Neil Gaiman and J. H. Williams III’s miniseries The Sandman: Overture
(2013–2015), was subjected to cognitive comics analysis, the purpose of which was to
investigate how the comic’s alien characters inject a sense of nonhuman otherness in
the reading experience. The other target text, Mike Carey and Peter Gross’
metafictional series The Unwritten (2009–2015) compares Frankenstein’s monster to
fictional characters: both are artificial creations assembled out of diverse materials, but
still have a semblance of life and humanity. This analogy constitutes the backbone of
the extensive theoretical fusion and speculation performed throughout the work. The
Creature’s journey from assorted fragments into a sentient, rebellious being is likened
to the developments between structuralist, cognitive and transmedial character
theories, for instance. Additionally, Frankenstein’s handiwork and the wanderings of
his collage-like creation steer the attention towards the ways characters and their parts
are recycled from text to text and from medium to medium. These transtextual
processes are shaped both by the commercial interests of the creative industries and by
the communities of readers, whose cognitive engagements ultimately grant the
characters a spark of life. Based on the case studies conducted in the four articles, the
dissertation suggests a new enactivist theory of fictional figures. Characters are
experienced as dynamic and life-like because readers enact them as such in their
interactions with texts and other readers, and because these textual, social and cultural
environments offer possibilities for such cognitive actions. These interpretational
processes are profoundly relational, open-ended and subjective, which imbues
characters with monstrous paradoxicality and instability: they are both text and
cognition, both mimetic and synthetic, both incomplete and forever open to new
meanings.
Keywords: comic book characters, fictional characters, comics, graphic narratives,
cognitive narrative studies, enactivism, reading experiences, narrative theory,
transmedial narratology, Vertigo comics, Frankenstein’s creatureunknown accessibilityei tietoa saavutettavuudest
Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture
Get PDFThe time has come for human cultures to seriously think, to severely conceptualize, and to earnestly fabulate about all the nonhuman critters we share our world with, and to consider how to strive for more ethical cohabitation. Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture tackles this severe matter within the framework of literary and cultural studies. The emphasis of the inquiry is on the various ways actual and fictional nonhumans are reconfigured in contemporary culture – although, as long as the domain of nonhumanity is carved in the negative space of humanity, addressing these issues will inevitably clamor for the reconfiguration of the human as well. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/reconfiguring-human-nonhuman-posthuman-literature-culture-sanna-karkulehto-aino-kaisa-koistinen-essi-varis/e/10.4324/9780429243042, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license
Dead Dog Talking : Posthumous, Preposthumous, and Preposterous Canine Narration in Charles Siebert’s Angus
No full textThe section focusing on narrating and narrated animals opens with Mikko Keskinen’s chapter, which probes the narrational peculiarities of posthumous tales told by dogs. The primary target of Keskinen’s analysis is Charles Siebert’s novel Angus (2000), a first-person memoir of a dying Jack Russell terrier. The novel presents its canine protagonist Angus as having an outstanding command of the English language, whereby it is no surprise that his lineage turns out to be particularly literary. Yet there are curious idiosyncrasies in his parlance, which appear to suggest a uniquely cynomorphic language and worldview.
Since Angus the dog resides on the border zone between human and nonhuman spheres of communication and knowledge, he is a hybrid creature: domesticated, yet wildly unfamiliar. A similar hybridity marks Angus the novel and the effects of its narration: backward narration may appear a “natural” analogy to canines’ ability to trail lingering scents, but it also results in unnatural and counterfactual effects and storylines.peerReviewe
Playing the Nonhuman : Alien Experiences in Aliens vs. Predator
No full textWhat is it like to play a nonhuman character? In his classic essay, philosopher Thomas Nagel (1975) argues that we are fundamentally unable to imagine what it is like to be a bat, because our senses and cognition are structured in a way that is uniquely human – whereas bats’ senses and cognition have a uniquely bat-like configuration. In spite of this, media genres from fantasy to science-fiction routinely strive to imagine and show what it could be like to be something other than human. What is more, different media achieve this effect by different means: literature provides textual descriptions, audio-visual media rely on moving images, and comics employ different kinds of multimodal compositions, as discussed in the previous chapter.
In the fifth chapter, Jonne Arjoranta continues investigating these medium-specific imaginations by examining how video games portray the nonhuman, what kind of assumptions they make about being nonhuman, and what kind of tools and techniques they use to convey the (imagined) experience of nonhumanness. The analysis focuses on Aliens vs. Predator (2010, Rebellion Developments), which features three different but intertwined campaigns that allow the player to play as a human, an alien, and a predator. The game thereby evokes two playing experiences that are supposedly nonhuman, and enables direct comparison between them and the “normal” experience of playing as human. The discussion around these playing experiences is further complemented with examples from other games that present playable nonhuman characters and, like the previous two chapters, draws theoretical support from the notion of embodied cognition.peerReviewe
Wild Things Squeezed in the Closet : Monsters of Children’s Literature as Nonhuman Others
No full textChildren and monsters share a similar position in the world dominated by human adults: both are typically represented as animalized, alien creatures that are to be tamed, protected, abused, or repelled. In other words, children and monsters are constructed as different and “other” from the hegemonic standard that is the full-grown, healthy (and typically white) human. Children’s literature thus opens a space where the ethical relationships between humans and nonhumans can be radically reconfigured: the different forms and genres of fiction aimed at infants and youngsters offer wads of intriguing, underutilized material for examining the construction of nonhuman otherness and its complex connections to the various groups of human others – including children themselves.
In the chapter co-authored by Marleena Mustola and Sanna Karkulehto, brief analyses of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1963), Shaun Tan’s “Stick Figures” (in Tales of Outer Suburbia, 2009), and Tuutikki Tolonen’s Monster Nanny (2017) demonstrate how the othering, abjection, and abuse of the monsters in children’s literature embody the contemporary (human) anxieties. In all of these narratives, the fear of difference agitates the human characters to mistreat the characters that represent the disempowered other: monsters – and even the monstrous characteristics lurking inside the humans themselves – are squeezed into tight closets, creatures evoking existential questions are beaten down to silence, and opportunistic quests are undertaken to tame anything wild and unruly.peerReviewe
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Construction of characters in graphic novels
No full textTutkielmassa tarkastellaan sarjakuvahahmojen rakentumista monitahoisena semioottis-kognitiivisena prosessina, jossa sarjakuvakielen erilaiset merkit yhdistyvät muista medioista tuttuihin henkilöhahmokonventioihin ja lukijoiden ihmiskäsityksiin. Suurennuslasin alla ovat erityisesti angloamerikkalaiset sarjakuvaromaanit ja kognitiiviset henkilöhahmoteoriat.
Tutkimuskysymykset kiteytyvät siihen, kuinka irralliset kuva- ja tekstielementit yhdistetään ajatusrakennelmiksi, jotka sekä muistuttavat että eivät muistuta käsityksiämme todellisista ihmisistä. Koska sarjakuvahahmoista ei ole luotu aiempaa teoriaa, tutkimuksessa luetaan ristiin yhtäältä kirjallisuuden henkilöhahmoteorioita ja toisaalta yleistä sarjakuvateoriaa. Aluksi E.M. Forsterin, W.J. Harveyn, Baruch Hochmanin ja Aleid Fokkeman näkemysten pohjalta kootaan yhtenäinen, lukijan kognitioihin ja merkkidataan perustuva henkilöhahmokäsitys. Soveltamalla tätä kirjallisuuslähtöistä hahmokäsitystä sarjakuvien kontekstiin, voidaan oppia ymmärtämään paitsi sarjakuvahahmoja sinänsä myös niiden eroja ja yhtäläisyyksiä kirjallisuuden hahmoihin nähden. Tätä intertekstuaalista näkökulmaa syventää edelleen W.G. Müllerin interfiguraalisuusteoria. Lopuksi sarjakuvan institutionaalisten,semioottisten ja rakenteellisten erityispiirteiden vaikutusta henkilöhahmoihin tarkastellaan sekä teorian että tapaustutkimusten tasolla. Scott McCloudin sarjakuvateoria sekä lähilukuun valikoituneet arvostetut sarjakuvaromaanit – Neil Gaimanin "The Sandman", Alan Mooren ja Dave Gibbonsin "Watchmen", Art Spiegelmanin "Maus" sekä Mike Careyn ja Peter Grossin "The Unwritten" – paljastavat kaikki erilaisia
puolia sekä henkilöhahmoista että sarjakuvan kerrontatekniikoista.
Sarjakuvan monimuotoiset ja sirpaleiset merkkirakenteet näyttävät vaikuttavan muun muassa
henkilöhahmojen realismiin, koherenssiin ja samastuttavuuteen. Kuvat ja sanat kykenevät sarjakuvissa liikkumaan useilla abstraktiotasoilla ja limittyvät näin sekä henkilöhahmojen sisäisten että ulkoisten aspektien kuvauksessa useilla mimeettisillä ja figuratiivisilla tavoilla. Toisaalta kuvan ja sanan osittainen päällekkäisyys näyttäisi luovan erityisen joustavia ja yhtenäisiä hahmoja. Vahva koherenssi auttaa hahmoja selviytymään ruutujen, pelkistettyjen viivojen sekä eri teosten ja tekijöiden väliin jäävistä aukoista. Aukot ja sirpaleisuus näyttäisivät puolestaan luovan tilaa lukijalle ja transtekstuaalisille elementeille, toisin sanoen vahvistavan hahmojen samastuttavuutta ja taipumusta intertekstuaalisuuteen.unknown accessibilityei tietoa saavutettavuudest
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