Today I had two consecutive experiences that speak to two different aspects of my budding thesis. First, I went to my ENG 450 seminar on John Keats and we talked about literary theory. We asked huge questions like: What can a word do? What can a poem do? What are the limits of representation? Does a poem or a story every exist apart from its perception by an audience? Where exactly do poems exist?
In many ways these are the questions I want to ask in my Environmental Studies thesis. I interested in the reader-response aspects of fiction, such as how audiences perceive and derive meaning from narratives and how transformative those experiences can be. But I am also interested in this last question: where exactly do stories exist? In creating different worlds with different rules, is fiction inherently a built environment? By using human symbols for the purpose of creating and spreading knowledge, can we consider a piece of fiction definitively as technology? And as Ursula Le Guin and William Ruckert discuss, what is the capacity of fiction and do stories release energy into the “real world”?
These are the questions that John Keats thoughtfully and dismissively answers (or perhaps provokes) in his personal letters. These are the questions that English papers can ask and on which English professors can speculate. These are not the questions that can be answered in a scientific setting, like the Rogers and Mellon poster session I attended after class to present a 10 week science research project. I spent the poster session explaining the process of interdisciplinary social science and summarizing the results from statistical analyses on our measures. In a way, these two experiences were perfect practice for my thesis. These intense, philosophical questions provoked by my English are the ones that underlie the methodological scientific experiment and analysis I engage with. My challenge is to move across these worlds and get these academic disciplines to actually speak to one another
I am encountering this challenge in my process of formulating my guiding and researchable questions for my thesis. There are too many to list. How do I account for a philosophical angle on the capacity of fiction AND a very specific case study regarding one summer of research that is only half analyzed? I am looking for a balance between doable and profound.
[table]
Type, Question Set 1: Using Fiction to Persuade, Question Set 2: Science Fiction and Science
Instrumental, How can we use narrative fiction to alter attitudes and behaviors (i.e. regarding risk or motivating specific action)?, How can we use science fiction to alter attitudes and behaviors regarding disaster preparation?
Evaluative, Can the creator/s of the story control how the story is received by the audience? Who benefits from persuasive fiction?, Is science fiction the best method or genre to communicate scientific information to a wide audience? Who is it best for? Who is it not the best for?
Explanatory,Why are certain narrative strategies; genres; or literary devices more persuasive or salient than others?, How has science fiction as a genre impact broad cultural conceptions of disasters? What genre conventions of science fiction might be useful for science communication?
Descriptive, What narrative strategies; genres; or literary devices make fictional stories more persuasive or salient? What is a fictional story?, What is the relationship between science and science fiction? What are the genre conventions of science fiction?
Framing/Guiding, How can fiction effect change? How do audiences respond to intentional messaging?, How can scientists use narrative fiction persuasively to alter attitudes and affect action?
Focus/Researchable, How do audience report transformation after experiencing a narrative?, What strategies of fiction and narrative can scientists employ to disseminate scientific knowledge to stakeholders outside of the scientific community?
[/table]
I might use these questions. I might use other questions. These questions are certainly too broad, but I think that thinking about methodologies next will help me hone and specify. But these are two topics that are worth pursuing. There are definitely more topics, such as fictions relevance to ENVS and the experience of reading and how to measure it. However, much of these questions would apply to other potential avenues. As always, more to come!
Seeking Expert Knowledge
I met with two professors this week and talked with both of them about my initial ideas about my thesis.
The first conversation I had was with Dr. Kurt Fosso in the English department. We have spent the last several weeks discussing a poem called “This living hand” by John Keats and discussing Keats’s concept of “negative capability.” We discussed how these two works by Keats speak to the ability of poetry (side note: can I use poetry, fiction, narrative interchangeably? Does theory about one connect to either of the others?) to bring connection between author and reader, and reader and imagined character. In Keats’s day, poetry and novels in particular were able to create empathy and emotional connection between the elite and the poor, disadvantaged, lower class women often represented. In this way, reading can be a subversive activity that actually challenges the status quo (of class, of distance, of hierarchy). This speaks to the notion of intervention that directs the media campaign we are trying to create. If poetry has the power to subvert culture by causing paradigm shift in readers, can narrative change culture by causing a specific paradigm shift in perceivers? Is the answer obvious?
The second conversation I had was with Dr. Bryan Sebok of media studies. While I am trying to lean on my English background, if the case study I use is a piece of film, media studies is paramount to the work. He suggested many different approaches on how to adapt our summer project into a line of inquiry for my thesis. The first thing he suggested was to examine science’s relationship with science fiction in a discourse analysis. For example, ask: How do science fiction or the PSA genre fit in with the broader discourse? and examine the representation of science and science information with other kinds of writing, media, etc? Another approach could be to examine media framing. For instance, how do institutions and media creators talk about a specific topic? How is it framed by the source? A question he brought up that I found very interesting was this: Who has the power and authority to speak on certain topics?
Author, authority, and authentic all share the same word root. If I am to examine the energy power of narratives, I also must consider the authorial power of narratives. On the media response aspect of my thesis ideas, Bryan discussed audience reception studies and the different traditions of studying audience as a useful field to explore. He mentioned fan culture. He also mentioned the limited effects of media on behavior change. Media is just one factor is a sea of many for explaining behavior. This suggests that media isn’t all powerful.
My final question for Bryan was whether I can use both literary criticism and media theory to discuss the same content. The answer is not simple and I might look harder into this crossover.