Mittwoch, 02. Dezember 2015, 19:00 - 21:00 iCal

The Force of Fiction

WILLIAM EGGINTON (The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore)

Department of Philosophy
Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien

Lecture


WILLIAM EGGINTON (The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore):

The Force of Fiction

 

Wednesday, December 2, 2015, 7–9 pm

Department of Philosophy, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna, room 2G

 

Like the air we breathe, fiction may be almost invisible to us by virtue of its ubiquity and prominence. But as accustomed as we are to engaging with fictional worlds—be it in books or on screens, large or small—it is a mistake to assume that fiction is a simple phenomenon; that it is universal across cultures and times; or that its ostensible distance from truth or reality renders it in any way innocuous. This lecture interrogates theories of fiction in an attempt to elucidate the force of fiction, both in its potential for synchronizing beliefs and behavior as well as in its capacity to disrupt conformity and usher in new truths.

 

Professor Egginton teaches literature, literary theory, and the relation between literature and philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA). He is author of "How the World Became a Stage" (2003), "Perversity and Ethics" (2006), "A Wrinkle in History" (2007), "The Philosopher's Desire" (2007), "The Theater of Truth" (2010), and "In Defense of Religious Moderation" (2011). He is also co-editor with Mike Sandbothe of "The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy", translator of Lisa Block de Behar's "Borges: The Passion of an Endless Quotation" (2003), and co-editor with David E. Johnson of "Thinking with Borges" (2009). His next book, "The Man Who Invented Fiction", will be published by Bloomsbury in February 2016.

 

In co-operation with Gruppe Phänomenologie


Veranstalter

Institut für Philosophie


Kontakt

Gertrud Wachter
Institut für Philosophie
Sekretariat
4277-46401
gertrud.wachter@univie.ac.at