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There's been something percolating for years, and it involves estrangement and the uncanny. And I keep thinking that there's something to be said for throwing an incredulity against metanarratives (© JF Lyotard) in the general direction of cognition, especially as I noticed the phrase cognitive mapping (© Fredric Jameson).
The way I tend to work is that I convince myself that there is a connection between a and b, and then do the the research to prove it, finding everything slotting into place. It can take years. It makes abstracts high risk articles of faith.
My hinge for a current article (which I shouldn't write yet, but I need a CFP abstract, and will deliver a forty minute version in March) is a certain four letter word, which I've seen quoted from a classic work by a well-known continental philosopher. Only the quotations either lacked page numbers, or didn't match up. The book is on Google books, but I realise its pages don't match the real book. There are two editions - and possibly therefore two translations, albeit by the same person. I have been largely failing to locate the four letter word in the physical version, but have found some suggestive lines on [redacted].
At some point I need to read the same author's book on the uncanny (and other issues).
I cheated, by getting a book on the given philosopher, whose title contains the four-letter word, and the conceit I am wishing to use, except that the latter is being used in a different sense from the way I am using it, although I think the two will connect up. And connect to the uncanny. And I think it only appropriate. But he's taken a hundred pages to cover the ground from Hegel to my man, large discussing people I've never heard of and using words like symploke.* I feel another digression coming on before he gets there. I am not heartened by the lack of times he uses the four-letter word I am looking for, either....
I may at the end of this have a new general theory of science fiction, but don't start holding your breath just yet.
Of course, I need to read a pile of novels to apply the ideas. Details....
* The combination of anaphora and epistrophe, as eny fule kno.
The way I tend to work is that I convince myself that there is a connection between a and b, and then do the the research to prove it, finding everything slotting into place. It can take years. It makes abstracts high risk articles of faith.
My hinge for a current article (which I shouldn't write yet, but I need a CFP abstract, and will deliver a forty minute version in March) is a certain four letter word, which I've seen quoted from a classic work by a well-known continental philosopher. Only the quotations either lacked page numbers, or didn't match up. The book is on Google books, but I realise its pages don't match the real book. There are two editions - and possibly therefore two translations, albeit by the same person. I have been largely failing to locate the four letter word in the physical version, but have found some suggestive lines on [redacted].
At some point I need to read the same author's book on the uncanny (and other issues).
I cheated, by getting a book on the given philosopher, whose title contains the four-letter word, and the conceit I am wishing to use, except that the latter is being used in a different sense from the way I am using it, although I think the two will connect up. And connect to the uncanny. And I think it only appropriate. But he's taken a hundred pages to cover the ground from Hegel to my man, large discussing people I've never heard of and using words like symploke.* I feel another digression coming on before he gets there. I am not heartened by the lack of times he uses the four-letter word I am looking for, either....
I may at the end of this have a new general theory of science fiction, but don't start holding your breath just yet.
Of course, I need to read a pile of novels to apply the ideas. Details....
* The combination of anaphora and epistrophe, as eny fule kno.
