Can We Learn about Real Social Worlds from Fictional Ones?

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-293
Author(s):  
Todd Jones ◽  

It is very common for social scientists to be asked whether their findings about human nature could also be learned from reading great works of literature. Literature teachers frequently assign readings partly to teach people important truths about the world. But it is unclear how looking at a work of fiction can tell us about the real world at all. In this paper I carefully examine questions about the conditions under which the fictional world can teach us about the real world.

Author(s):  
D. Ajdačić

The absence of a typology of irony in the theory of fiction stems from the fact that irony and fiction differently form and transform reality – fiction is a kind of fictional depiction of amazing worlds or phenomena. On the contrary, irony does not create worlds; in it, the subject comments on reality, adding another vision, a vision with a reassessment and deviation from what is said or presented. Irony can comment on the realities of different ontological status, that is, irony can relate to the real world and the fictional world, whether it is real or amazing. Fantasy transforms the world – it distorts, destroys or completes, or builds new worlds, and irony already adds a different vision to the ideas and views presented, regardless of whether they are real or fictional. The terminological and literary-theoretical aspects of the use of irony in works of literary fiction are discussed in the text. Dragan Stojanović’s book “Irony and Meaning” and the author’s terms “Ironical Focus” and “Meaning Pressure” are used as a theoretical starting point. After highlighting the touchpoints of irony and fiction and their special qualities and roles, is proposed a typology of the use of irony in fiction that separates ironic actions concerning the real world, the marvelous world and problematizing the relationship between the real and the marvelous world.


Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4927 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-300
Author(s):  
ISIDOR S. PLONSKI

The present communication is primarily nomenclaturial–classical taxonomy is only touched in a side note on a diagnosis. It uses technical terminology coined by Alain Dubois, who is interested in the study of the concepts and theory of biological nomenclature (i.e. the “objective connection between the real world of populations of organisms and the world of language” (Dubois & Ohler 1997)), and who discusses the current ‘International Code for Zoological Nomenclature’ [hereafter just called ‘the Code’] in great detail. The terms are explained where necessary–but see also the glossaries in Dubois et al. (2019) and the works by A. Dubois cited below. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Wałczyk

Nikifor Krynicki (Epifaniusz Drowniak, 1895-1968) was one of the most popular non-academic Polish painters worldwide. To show the biblical inspiration in his creative output I chose two categories from various thematic aspects: self-portraits and landscapes with a church. There are plenty of Nikifor’s paintings showing him as a teacher, as a celebrating priest, as a bishop, or even as Christ. A pop­ular way to explain this idea of self-portraits is a psychological one: as a form of auto-therapy. This analysis is aims to show a deeper expla­nation for the biblical anthropology. Nikifor’s self-portraits as a priest celebrating the liturgy are a symbol of creative activity understood as a divine re-creation of the world. Such activity needs divine inspira­tion. Here are two paintings to recall: Potrójny autoportret (The triple self-portrait) and Autoportret w trzech postaciach (Self-portrait in three persons). The proper way to understand the self-identification with Christ needs a reference to biblical anthropology. To achieve our re­al-self we need to identify with Christ, whose death and resurrection bring about our whole humanity. The key impression we may have by showing Nikifor’s landscapes with a church is harmony. The painter used plenty of warm colors. Many of the critics are of the opinion that Nikifor created an imaginary, ideal world in his landscapes, the world he wanted to be there and not the real world. The thesis of this article is that Nikifor created not only the ideal world, but he also showed the source of the harmony – the divine order.


1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (x) ◽  
pp. 251-261
Author(s):  
Richard C. Rockwell

This essay sets forth the thesis that social reporting in the United States has suffered from an excess of modesty among social scientists. This modesty might be traceable to an incomplete model of scientific advance. one that has an aversion to engagement with the real world. The prospects for social reporting in the United States would be brighter if reasonable allowances were to be made for the probable scientific yield of the social reporting enterprise itself. This yield could support and improve not only social reporting but also many unrelated aspects of the social sciences.


Author(s):  
Johanna Lawrie

In this paper I will examine the multiple layers of time within Tom Stoppard’s play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Typically, a script plays with two definitions of the term: stage time being that of the audience and the “real world,” and dramatic time, the passing of time within the world of the play and the characters’ lives. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is unique in its multitude of times, each occupying its own space within the story. Hamlet resides in a time that extends beyond that of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, while presenting the same story through different characters. When are these stories presented harmoniously, and when can gaps be found between the two plays in terms of time? In contrast, the play‐within‐a‐play presented in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, titled “The Murder of Gonzago,” represents the story even prior to the opening scene of Hamlet and has an omniscient quality, presenting elements of both Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Though this play‐within‐a‐play represents the longest view of the overlapping stories, it is presented in the shortest amount of time. “The Murder of Gonzago” plays with the limitations of time and space and the acknowledgment of their presentation in theatrical terms. Throughout the paper I will determine the overlapping nature of times within the plays, how they are structured around one another, and what this symbolises for both the spaces of each play and the characters within.  


Author(s):  
Prabha Selvaraj ◽  
Sumathi Doraikannan ◽  
Anantha Raman Rathinam ◽  
Balachandrudu K. E.

Today technology evolves in two different directions. The first one is to create a new technology for our requirement and solve the problem, and the second one is to do it with the existing technology. This chapter will discuss in detail augmented reality and its use in the real world and also its application domains like medicine, education, health, gaming, tourism, film and entertainment, architecture, and development. Many think that AR is only for smartphones, but there are different ways to enhance the insight of the world. Augmented realities can be presented on an extensive range of displays, monitors, screens, handheld devices, or glasses. This chapter will provide the information about the key components of AR devices. This chapter gives a view on different types of AR and also projects how the technology can be adapted for multiple purposes based on the required type of view.


Inception ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 95-98
Author(s):  
David Carter

This chapter looks at the specific artistic references in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010). One artist is referred to by indirect reference and visual simulation of some of his works, and another is paid homage to by the inclusion of one of his works in a scene. The artists in question are M.C. Escher and Francis Bacon. The Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher, famous for his works featuring constructions which would be impossible in the real world, is not directly named in the film, but he is referred to indirectly by the mention of a phenomenon which he utilised in his work: the so-called 'Penrose Steps'. Meanwhile, in a sequence in which Cobb is talking to Mal, there is a painting visible on the wall of the room, Bacon's Study for a head of George Dyer, 1967. Nolan clearly shares some perspectives on the world with Bacon: a fascination with distorted reality, a sense of horror as in a nightmare, and, in some cases, the real world being actually torn apart.


2020 ◽  
pp. 39-65
Author(s):  
Emma Gee

This chapter studies the underworld journey of Virgil, Aeneid 6. It examines a series of possible models for afterlife space in Aen. 6. In particular it looks at the underworld journey of Aen. 6 in the light of ancient geographical traditions. We learn that a point-by-point idiom of representing space was much more widespread than you might imagine in antiquity. It’s found across many different genres, involving real and imagined space: geography, poetry, and art. The author argues that idioms of spatial expression are constant across representations of imagined and real space and across image and text. It is possible for Virgil to use the components of a “real” geography to construct his imaginary world. The afterlife is modeled on our concept of the “real” world, but in turn the “reality” we model it on is in large part a construct of the human artistic imagination, of our propenstiy for simplification and schematization. Like a map, the afterlife landscape allows us to simplify and schematize our environment, because it imposes no limits: it is imaginary. The afterlife landscape, in Virgil and elsewhere, acts as a fulcrum between real and imaginary space. There is no strict dichotomy between real and imagined space; instead there is a continuity between the “imagined” space of Virgil’s underworld, and the space of geographical accounts; between the world of the soul and the “real” world.


Author(s):  
David Gelernter

we’ve installed the foundation piles and are ready to start building Mirror worlds. In this chapter we discuss (so to speak) the basement, in the next chapter we get to the attic, and the chapter after that fills in the middle region and glues the whole thing together. The basement we are about to describe is filled with lots of a certain kind of ensemble program. This kind of program, called a Trellis, makes the connection between external data and internal mirror-reality. The Trellis is, accordingly, a key player in the Mirror world cast. It’s also a good example of ensemble programming in general, and, I’ll argue, a highly significant gadget in itself. The hulking problem with which the Trellis does battle on the Mirror world’s behalf is a problem that the real world, too, will be confronting directly and in person very soon. Floods of data are pounding down all around us in torrents. How will we cope? what will we do with all this stuff? when the encroaching electronification of the world pushes the downpour rate higher by a thousand or a million times or more, what will we do then? Concretely: I’m talking about realtime data processing. The subject in this chapter is fresh data straight from the sensor. we’d like to analyze this fresh data in “realtime”—to achieve some understanding of data values as they emerge. Raw data pours into a Mirror world and gets refined by a data distillery in the basement. The processed, refined, one-hundredpercent pure stuff gets stored upstairs in the attic, where it ferments slowly into history. (In the next chapter we move upstairs.) Trellis programs are the topic here: how they are put together, how they work. But there’s an initial question that’s too important to ignore. we need to take a brief trip outside into the deluge, to establish what this stuff is and where it’s coming from. Data-gathering instruments are generally electronic. They are sensors in the field, dedicated to the non-stop, automatic gathering of measurements; or they are full-blown infomachines, waiting for people to sit down, log on and enter data by hand.


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