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Maria Leopold (Wuppertal): "Orientation and Disorientation
in Contemporary Anglo-American Novels and Film"
Abstract
Since the proclamation of a ‘spatial turn’ in the humanist sciences, also the particularities of narrated space are being researched more. Drawing upon research from Cognitive Narratology, Cognitive Psychology and the Neurosciences, my dissertation project is concerned with the cognitive functions of narrated space. The study is based on the premise that narrated space has two main functions: orienting or disorienting the recipient in the storyworld.
Focusing on disorienting strategies my project contributes to a new direction in Narratology that investigates all kinds of defamiliarizing narrative phenomena under the heading of “Unnatural Narratology.” The aim of my investigation is the elaboration of a typology that correlates (media specific) narrative forms of “unnatural” space with (transmedial) cognitive effects of disorientation.
During my presentation I would like to illustrate disorienting narrative strategies in Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves (2000). The novel creates impossible space on the level of the narrated world as well as on the various levels of narrative transmission. Furthermore the layout of the text reflects the labyrinthine structure of its content adding another dimension of disorienting space to the work.
Focusing on disorienting strategies my project contributes to a new direction in Narratology that investigates all kinds of defamiliarizing narrative phenomena under the heading of “Unnatural Narratology.” The aim of my investigation is the elaboration of a typology that correlates (media specific) narrative forms of “unnatural” space with (transmedial) cognitive effects of disorientation.
During my presentation I would like to illustrate disorienting narrative strategies in Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves (2000). The novel creates impossible space on the level of the narrated world as well as on the various levels of narrative transmission. Furthermore the layout of the text reflects the labyrinthine structure of its content adding another dimension of disorienting space to the work.
Bio
Academic Background: I studied Italian Linguistics, English Literature and German as a Foreign Language at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Since April 2009 I am working on my dissertation project with the working title “Spatial Effects: Orientation and Disorientation in Contemporary Anglo-American Novels and Film.” I have published an article on the medialization of the literary system (with Roy Sommer), another article on magical realism in film is about to be published and I am currently writing an article on the interplay of storyworlds in House of Leaves.
University Affiliation: I am working as a research assistant at the University of Wuppertal. I have taught courses on Literature and Film, Cognitive Approaches to Literature, British Romanticism, Literature of the Fin de Siècle and the Representation of the Empire in British Modernist Literature.
Research Interests: Cognitive Narratology, Unnatural Narratology, Magical Realism, Film studies.
University Affiliation: I am working as a research assistant at the University of Wuppertal. I have taught courses on Literature and Film, Cognitive Approaches to Literature, British Romanticism, Literature of the Fin de Siècle and the Representation of the Empire in British Modernist Literature.
Research Interests: Cognitive Narratology, Unnatural Narratology, Magical Realism, Film studies.