CFP: Fiction and Lies: the ASIFF/SIRFF Fourth International Congress

Supported by the British Society of Aesthetics and the Scots Philosophical Association

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

--Professor Eileen John (Philosophy, University of Warwick)
--Professor Pierre Bayard (Literature, Université Paris 8 - Saint-Denis)

From Plato’s indictment of the tragic poets as misrepresenting the truth, to Sir Philip Sidney’s famous claim in the Defence of Poesy that ‘the Poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth’, 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, ‘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’. 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’s film JFK (1991) or Michael Crichton’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 ‘fake news’ – a category not so easy to distinguish from ‘fictional news’.

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. Proposals may address fiction in general, or any historical period or cultural tradition. We also encourage studies of fictional works in a variety of media (including video games, comics, film, and television series).

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

•The possibility of lying in/through fiction

•Other modes of deception and dissimulation in fiction (in particular works, in different media, etc.)

•Fiction and fictionality as (tools for) propaganda

•The relationship between fiction and fake news

•Differing historical or cultural conceptions of the relationship between fiction and lies

•Representations of deception within fiction (e.g., unreliable narrators, lying protagonists, forgers)

•Fictions that (seem to) deceive about their own status (e.g., mockumentary), and more generally, questions of ‘framing’

Please note: There may be a conference registration fee (discounted for students) depending on the outcome of grant funding applications.

Submission guidance

•All submissions should be sent by attachment in Word or pdf to [email protected] by 15 December 2025. 

•Papers: Abstracts should be no longer than 350 words, in English or French. Bear in mind that sessions scheduled for paper presentations will be 30 minutes (20 minutes presentation, 10 minutes questions and answers). 

•Symposia: Proposals, in English or French, should be no longer than 500 words and should include a description of the topic/theme, the names/affiliations of participants and brief abstracts of the papers. Sessions for symposia will be 1.5 hours or 2 hours depending on the schedule and thus should typically have no more than three speakers. 

•We encourage submissions from, and symposia including, members of groups underrepresented in their disciplines, including women in philosophy. Symposia in philosophy should ensure that the proposal follows the Good Practice Policy of the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy (see bpa.ac.uk/resources/women-in-philosophy/good-practice). Please also take note of the BPA’s Environment/Travel Guideline Scheme (bpa.ac.uk/policies).

•Funding may be available towards the cost of arranging childcare for speakers who may require it. Please ask for details.

•Participants in the conference will be expected to become members of the Association if they are not already (www.fictionstudies.org).

Early career prize

The ASIFF/SIRFF will offer a prize for the best paper by an early-career scholar (doctoral student or scholar who has received their PhD within the last 3 years), to be presented at the conference. The winner will receive a monetary award of €1,000 (euros). If you would like to be considered for this award, please submit your completed conference paper (no more than 3,500 words/20,000 characters) by 28 February 2026 to [email protected]. The article must be unpublished.