Impossible Fictions
Second International Congress
of the
International Society for Fiction and Fictionality Studies
Société internationale des recherches sur la fiction et la fictionnalité
(ISFFS/SIRFF)
March 2–5, 2022
Neubauer Collegium
Via Zoom
Fiction has long been associated with possibility and plausibility – with the construction of plots that are governed by a certain causal logic. But how exactly does fiction model our understanding of what is possible in the real world? Conversely, how does our sense of what is possible in reality constrain what is perceived to be possible or impossible in fictional worlds? Are certain subjects off-limits to fictional representation? If these questions are not new ones, they have taken on a renewed urgency in the twenty-first century. In a context where our “real-world” conceptions of possibility and predictability are shifting in the face of global crisis, how can (or should) fiction present current or future possibilities?
Sponsored by:
Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society
France Chicago Center
ISFFS/SIRFF
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Institut Universitaire de France
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle