Convincing Fiction

An episode of the Gresham College Lectures podcast, hosted by Gresham College, titled "Convincing Fiction" was published on October 28, 2020 and runs 69 minutes.

October 28, 2020 ·69m · Gresham College Lectures

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Summary

How does fiction make itself seem like fact? Professor John Mullan begins where novels begin: with Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which showed every novel that followed how to make a 'strange surprising' story seem entirely 'probable' (the word that eighteenth-century pioneers of fiction liked to use). He will explore the tradition of factuality in the English novel, ending with the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro and examples of recent auto-fiction. A lecture by John Mullan 28 October The transcript ...

Episode Description

How does fiction make itself seem like fact?

Professor John Mullan begins where novels begin: with Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which showed every novel that followed how to make a 'strange surprising' story seem entirely 'probable' (the word that eighteenth-century pioneers of fiction liked to use). He will explore the tradition of factuality in the English novel, ending with the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro and examples of recent auto-fiction.

A lecture by John Mullan 28 October

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/convincing-fiction

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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