AIAS Guest talk: Prof. Dr. Christoph Bode, English Department, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
From Event to Node: How 'Future Narratives' Impact the Way We Conceive of the Future
Info about event
Time
Location
The AIAS, Building 1632, Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B, 8000 Aarhus C
In this talk, Prof. Dr. Christoph Bode develops a poetics of Future Narratives (FNs). While many narratives negotiate the future at the level of the content, FNs stage the future through their form; they contain 'nodal situations' which allow for more than one continuation. These 'nodes' are the conditio sine qua non of FNs: they use their structure to present the future as open and undecided. FNs thus enable the reader or player to enter situations that fork into different branches and to actually experience that 'what happens next' may well depend upon us. Examples of FNs are forking-path narratives (such as The French Lieutenant's Woman or the film Run Lola Run), which present multiple possibilities but do not involve choice on the part of the reader; Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books (such as Der Tempel des Schreckens), in which the reader's choices may lead to the death of the protagonist or the continuation of the plot; interactive fiction; hypertext fiction; video, online, and alternate reality games; simulations of climate change; and so forth.
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Participation
The lecture is open to all and registration is not necessary. Refreshments will be served after the lecture.
Organiser
AIAS Fellow Jan Alber
On Wednesday, November 4, a meeting with Bode will take place at 2:00-4:00 pm at the Narrative Research Lab, Aarhus University (building 1485, room 316). To attend please contact Jan Alber.
Prof. Dr. Bode will discuss the following sections from the book Future Narratives (by Christoph Bode and Rainer Dietrich; De Gruyter 2014) with us: 1.1, 1.8-1.15 (without 1.9), 1.18, and 1.19.