Leigh Wilson on the Fictional, Virtual and Real in the Contemporary Novel seminar

Wednesday 11th October, 5.00 – 7.00 pm
Room 206, University of Westminster, 32-38 Wells Street, London W1T 3UW

Should We Believe? The Fictional, the Virtual and the Real in the Contemporary Novel
Leigh Wilson (IMCC/University of Westminster)

Recent work from both novelists and literary critics has suggested that the contemporary novel is sick of fiction and has turned instead to the ‘real’. This paper questions this understanding of the contemporary novel and suggests instead that the most important representational model for the contemporary novel is the virtual. In establishing this, the article returns to both a history of the concept of the virtual and to Coleridge’s ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ in order to make visible the role of the virtual as a model for contemporary prose fiction.

All welcome! Followed by drinks in the Green Man …