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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/18169
Title: Cartography of Mind: Cognitive Approaches to Fictional Consciousness and Fictional Worlds in Bioy's "The Invention of Morel"
Authors: Tyler, Emily
Advisor: Donaldson, Jeffery
Department: English and Cultural Studies
Keywords: Cognitive Literary Theory;Science Fiction;Adolfo Casares Bioy;Fictional Mind;Fictional World;Consciousness
Publication Date: Nov-2015
Abstract: This thesis explores representations of fictional consciousness (the fictional mind) in the novel The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Casares Bioy through the lens of cognitive approaches to literature. I first argue that the ways in which we interact with fictional minds is not unlike the way that we interact with real minds. Utilizing a cognitive hermeneutic means laying bare some of the cognitive frames and processes which are embedded into fictional worlds. I then argue that consciousness itself is narratively structured. Conscious experience is gappy and lies atop an enormous, largely unconscious realm of cognitive processing. This thesis seeks to uncover some of these processes as represented in the fictional mind, arguing that representations of fictional consciousness are composed of internal narratives (like mental events, wishes, desires, etc.) mirroring the narrative structure of real consciousness. Finally, I argue that representations of consciousness are embodied and can be read in tandem with the fictional world in which they are situated. The feedback loop between the fictional mind and its fictional environment, both physical and sociocultural, is the starting point for a powerful, interdisciplinary reading methodology.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/18169
Appears in Collections:Open Access Dissertations and Theses

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