Narrative Events and Eventful Models in Physics: a Mutual Reflection
In this project, I propose an interdisciplinary theoretical investigation of events between literature and physics. In narratology, a narrative is defined as a series of events, but it is notoriously difficult to define an event. The traditional definition of an event as a change of state is not very helpful because many changes of state are too trivial for narrative analysis. The follow-up question becomes that of how to define a significant event, the kind of event that matters for our understanding of a story? In my investigation, I propose to look at those events whose irreversibility is foregrounded as the organizing principle and reason for the story at hand, such as fateful misjudgments in a Bildung narrative. I will study irreversible events in literature through the prism of scientific models that describe irreversible processes, such as the growth of entropy and the dissipation of energy in thermodynamics. By looking at how these processes are conceptualized in physics, I hope to be able to illuminate the key narratological features of an event. One hypothesis is that the interaction between the performative aspect of story-telling, that of syuzhet with the cognitive aspect of fabula produces the effect of eventfulness. At the same time, I want to study how our narrative understanding of eventfulness plays an important part in how physical models of irreversible processes are laid out.
Final report
My original conception was to conduct a comparative study of event and eventfulness in literature and physics. In the course of my research, my focus shifted to cognitive science from physics and other disciplines within "hard" sciences. The reason for this was that I realized that the scope of this project would have been too big to be doable. I also focused more narrowly on narratology as an area where the notion of event is very central. The hypothesis I explored was a connection between a narrative event and predictive processing in cognitive science.
The output, among other things, was two articles. One was on the connection between event and sequence (it is sometimes argued that you don't need the notion of event when you have sequence; I argued that you need both): "Narrative: Event, Temporality, Sequence" in Zalacznik Kulturoznawczy, in 2022. The other was on projection and retrospection: "Another Look at Retrospection: The Backward Movement of the Narrative Unconscious" in Poetics Today, in 2022.
I also organized a symposium in the summer of 2022 on "Events Across Disciplines." I invited academics from different disciplines who had worked with events and who presented on the meaning of events in their respective disciplines. A colleague from Mid-Sweden University, Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson helped me to co-edit a collection of these presentations as essays. The disciplines that are represented in this collection are literary studies, theater studies, quantum physics, cognitive science, economics, computer science, philosophy, mimetic theory, Generative Anthropology, performance practice, and computer game theory. The book is currently under review by Stockholm University Press. We are waiting for a response.
Finally, I have partially written a book on event as a paradoxical structure, where I work with the narrative notion of event and event in cognitive science. I use literary theory and cognitive science as a mutual reflection, a method that is currently used in the cognitive approach to narrative theory. I apply a similar method in relation to event and eventfulness, which has not been done before. I plan to finish it this summer.
The output, among other things, was two articles. One was on the connection between event and sequence (it is sometimes argued that you don't need the notion of event when you have sequence; I argued that you need both): "Narrative: Event, Temporality, Sequence" in Zalacznik Kulturoznawczy, in 2022. The other was on projection and retrospection: "Another Look at Retrospection: The Backward Movement of the Narrative Unconscious" in Poetics Today, in 2022.
I also organized a symposium in the summer of 2022 on "Events Across Disciplines." I invited academics from different disciplines who had worked with events and who presented on the meaning of events in their respective disciplines. A colleague from Mid-Sweden University, Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson helped me to co-edit a collection of these presentations as essays. The disciplines that are represented in this collection are literary studies, theater studies, quantum physics, cognitive science, economics, computer science, philosophy, mimetic theory, Generative Anthropology, performance practice, and computer game theory. The book is currently under review by Stockholm University Press. We are waiting for a response.
Finally, I have partially written a book on event as a paradoxical structure, where I work with the narrative notion of event and event in cognitive science. I use literary theory and cognitive science as a mutual reflection, a method that is currently used in the cognitive approach to narrative theory. I apply a similar method in relation to event and eventfulness, which has not been done before. I plan to finish it this summer.