fictions intro

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Fictions Examining how cultural products & practices communicate as fictions

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Page 1: Fictions Intro

Fictions

Examining how cultural products & practices communicate as

fictions

Page 2: Fictions Intro

• Not so much fictional as in untruthful – more like the term MYTH; a way of explaining, simplifying and organising our perceptions of the world, making our shared understanding seem natural or taken for granted (ideology)

Page 3: Fictions Intro

Roland Barthes: Mythologies

• Analyses assumptions and things that go without saying in society and culture

• i.e. In a wrestling match he sees representations and themes of good V evil, Justice, Heroic acts all tied together under the grand narrative or fiction of ancient and popular mythologies or shared stories

Page 4: Fictions Intro

We do the same…

• Assess and analyse a variety of fictions & narratives (books, films, fairytales, plays, video games, and factual events like news, current affairs etc)

• Try to understand the role they play in defining our culture

• Look at how fictions are embedded in culture

• What do the stories tell and what are they for?

Page 5: Fictions Intro

Two cultural roles played by fictions

1. Fictions communicate cultural norms and values to us. In this sense fictions are a significant part of the enculturation process; they help to define, reproduce and sometimes challenge culture

Can you think of any examples that might tie into the above?

Read the Christmas story and answer the questions on your blog

Page 6: Fictions Intro

2. Fictions provide us with structural devices that enable us to enact our culture. E.g. I may go on holiday and take pictures or send postcards back. This is providing a structural framework for me to be in my own story and to tell it to others

Can you think of a time when you have ‘inhabited’ your own story?

Write your own short xmas story on your blog

Page 7: Fictions Intro

Your Christmas story

• Is it a work of fiction (as in made up)?

• Is it a traditional narrative?

• How is Myth at work in your story?

• Think semiotically; myth comes via connotations in the text working in a negotiated manner.

Page 8: Fictions Intro

• If Myth in your and all story delivers familiar meanings and prompts responses we can see it as procedure by which we understand ourselves and society…

• ‘Myth as complex set of images & associated beliefs which society constructs as its system of meaning’

• Fiction then carries or delivers this system of meaning, actively, passively, consciously and unconsciously