The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief by James, Alison; Kubo, Akihiro; Lavocat, Françoise;

Short description:

The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief offers a fresh reevaluation of the relationship between fiction and belief, surveying key debates and perspectives from a range of disciplines including narrative and cultural studies, science, religion, and politics.

Long description:

The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief offers a fresh reevaluation of the relationship between fiction and belief, surveying key debates and perspectives from a range of disciplines including narrative and cultural studies, science, religion, and politics. This volume draws on global, cutting edge research and theory to investigate the historically variable understandings of fictionality, and allows readers to grasp the role of fictions in our understanding of the world.

This interdisciplinary approach provides a thorough introduction to the fundamental themes of:

• Theoretical and Philosophical Perspectives on Fiction


• Fiction, Fact, and Science


• Social Effects and Uses of Fiction


• Fiction and Politics


• Fiction and Religion

Questioning how fictions in fact shape, mediate or distort our beliefs about the real world, essays in this volume outline the state of theoretical debates from the perspectives of literary theory, philosophy, sociology, religious studies, history, and the cognitive sciences. It aims to take stock of the real or supposed effects that fiction has on the world, and to offer a wide-reaching reflection on the implications of belief in fictions in the so-called “post-truth” era.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1 Belief, Imagination, and the Nature of Fiction

2 The “Willing Suspension of Disbelief”: The Long History of a Short Phrase

3 The Fictionality of Games and the Ludic Nature of Fiction: Make-Believe, Immersion, Play

4 Fictional Emotions and Belief

5 Fictional Characters and Belief

Thomas Pavel

6 Fictionality, the Zone of Generic Fiction, and the Allure of Unreliable Narration

7 Belief Is a Mess. That Makes It Good for Fiction. (A Perspective from Cognitive Literary Theory)

8 Fiction and Historiography

9 Fiction and Scientific Knowledge

10 Learning from Fiction

11 Do Fictions Impact People’s Beliefs? A Critical View

12 The Impact of Fiction on Beliefs about Gender

13 Implicit Bias, Fiction, and Belief

14 Children’s Ideas about Stories and about Reality

15 From Suspension of Disbelief to Production of Belief: The Case of Alternate Reality Games

16 Interactive Environments and Fictional Engagement

17 Fake News and Fictional News

Jessica Pepp, Rachel Sterken, and Eliot Michaelson

18 Trust, Credulity, and Speech

19 Literature on Credit: Fiction and the Fiduciary Paradigm

20 Fifth-Generation Fictionality? Fiction, Politics, War

21 Uses of Fantasy Fiction in Contemporary Political Mobilization

22 Fiction, Belief, and Postcolonial Criticism

23 Can Fictions Predict the Future?

24 Dystopian Fictions and Contemporary Fears

25 Fiction, Belief, and Climate Change: Paratexts, Skeptics, and Objects of Care

26 Greek Mythology: Discourse, Belief, and Ritual Action

27 Fiction and Belief: Approaching Medieval Latin Christendom

28 Literary Fictions, “Fables,” and Unbelief in the West

29 Saints, Between Faith, Belief, and Fiction

30 The Role of Fiction in Buddhist Hagiography: The Case of Shinran

Markus Rüsch

31 Fiction and Belief in Ancient and Early Medieval India

32 Fiction, Religion, and Premodern Arab-Islamic Literature (Eighth–Eighteenth Centuries)

33 Fiction against Belief and Belief in Fiction in Modern and Contemporary Arabic Literature

34 On Jewish Fiction and Belief: Duplicity, Parables, Confession

35 Religious Uses of Fantasy Fiction

36 Fake Cults, Hyper-Real Religions, Virtual Beliefs at the Crossroads of Fiction, the Sacred, and Technology