KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
-Professor Eileen John (Philosophy\, University of Warwick)
--Professor Pierre Bayard (Literature\, Université\; Paris 8 - Saint-Denis)
From Plato&rsquo\;s indictment of the tragic poets as misrepresenting the truth\, to Sir Philip Sidney&rsquo\;s famous claim in the Defence of Poesy that &lsquo\;the Poet\, he nothing affirms\, and therefore never lieth&rsquo\;\, to current debates about fictionality and factuality\, the relationship between \;fiction \;and \;lies \;has been a focus of scholarly attention. Both \;fiction-makers and liars make things up and misrepresent the truth. But it is traditionally assumed that with \;fiction\, the invention is non-deceptive. As Margaret Macdonald (1954\, 170) put the point\, &lsquo\;The conviction induced by a story is the result of a mutual conspiracy\, freely entered into\, between author and audience. A storyteller does not \;lie\, nor is a normal auditor deceived&rsquo\;. Macdonald proposed that instead\, \;fiction-makers engage in a non-deceptive pretence of assertion\; but other approaches also distinguish between fictionality and deception\, from philosophers who associate \;fiction \;with an invitation to make-believe rather than to believe to narratologists who treat fictionality as a rhetorical mode of communication that overtly signals fabrication. If \;lies \;are assertions aimed at deception\, perhaps \;fictions \;are incapable of \;lying.
Yet a sharp distinction between fictionality and deception confronts numerous challenges. Scholars across disciplines have considered the many ways in which \;fictions \;can affect our beliefs\, for good or ill. Even if \;fictions \;cannot \;lie \;in some technical sense\, they can certainly mislead\, insinuate\, obfuscate and so on. Works of \;fiction \;may be instances of propaganda which misrepresent the facts\; think of Oliver Stone&rsquo\;s film JFK (1991) or Michael Crichton&rsquo\;s \;novel \;State of Fear (2004). And the distinctions between the \;fictional \;and factual are under increasing pressure in the current culture of disinformation and &lsquo\;fake news&rsquo\; &ndash\; a category not so easy to distinguish from &lsquo\;fictional \;news&rsquo\;.
This three-day international conference aims to explore the relationship between \;fiction \;and \;lies \;from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives\, including philosophy\, literary history and theory\, narratology\, film and media studies\, psychology and cognitive science. \;