Steven Willemsen
Biographic Data
| ID | 980585 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven Willemsen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven |
| FAMILY NAME | Willemsen |
| SIGNATURE | WILLEMSEN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Groningen |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5846-3839 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 6 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 6 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Worlds in bodies: Complexity, play, and the narratively literate mind
In this introductory essay, we propose working definitions for the terms and concepts that frame this special issue, taking in academic and folk debates around the nexus of narrative, mind and play, specifically in relation to complexity. We argue that while human cognition is predisposed to storify experience, the mind itself is also storified. Because narrative is integral to the construction of reality and experience, we need a narrative liter…
Kept in the Loop: Narrative Play and Epistemic Emotions
Narrative time loops can challenge key dimensions of story comprehension, including causality, chronology, agency, and continuity. But how can such temporally puzzling experiences contribute to narrative engagement? This essay argues that many contemporary loop narratives in fiction film and television seek a distinct kind of audience engagement, one that can be characterized as narrative play, a ludic invitation to actively engage with and decod…
Introduction: Time Loops, Temporal Uncertainty, and Problem-Solving in Narrative
Burning questions and multiple answers: Ambiguous-unreliable narration and the uncertainties of truth and trust
This article explores how ambiguous-unreliable narration occurs in cinema as a distinct mode of unreliability. In defining ambiguous narration, we build on Semir Zeki’s neurobiological notion of ambiguity, from which we understand ambiguous narration as a mode that presents a series of questions consistently answered in mutually contradictory ways. We pay specific attention to Robert Vogt’s definition of ambiguous-unreliable narration in order to…
Stories: Screen Narrative in the Digital Era
Stories are perceived as central to modern life. Not only in narrative entertainment media, such as television, cinema, theater, but also in social media. Telling/having "a story" is widely deemed essential, in business as well as in social life. Does this mark an intensification of what has always been part of human cultures; or has the realm of "story" expanded to dominate twenty-first century discourse? Addressing stories is an obvious priorit…
Interpretation
Narratology and literary studies have always had ambivalent attitudes toward interpretation. This article proposes that the recent divide between the research programs of cognitive and unnatural narratology is a new expression of a profound methodological schism. Reviewing the status of interpretation in cognitive and unnatural approaches to narrative, we contend that scholars in the cognitive camp have tended to treat interpretation as an object…
Interpretation
Narratology and literary studies have always had ambivalent attitudes toward interpretation. This article proposes that the recent divide between the research programs of cognitive and unnatural narratology is a new expression of a profound methodological schism. Reviewing the status of interpretation in cognitive and unnatural approaches to narrative, we contend that scholars in the cognitive camp have tended to treat interpretation as an object…
Stories: Screen Narrative in the Digital Era
Stories are perceived as central to modern life. Not only in narrative entertainment media, such as television, cinema, theater, but also in social media. Telling/having "a story" is widely deemed essential, in business as well as in social life. Does this mark an intensification of what has always been part of human cultures; or has the realm of "story" expanded to dominate twenty-first century discourse? Addressing stories is an obvious priorit…
Interpretation
Narratology and literary studies have always had ambivalent attitudes toward interpretation. This article proposes that the recent divide between the research programs of cognitive and unnatural narratology is a new expression of a profound methodological schism. Reviewing the status of interpretation in cognitive and unnatural approaches to narrative, we contend that scholars in the cognitive camp have tended to treat interpretation as an object…
Burning questions and multiple answers: Ambiguous-unreliable narration and the uncertainties of truth and trust
This article explores how ambiguous-unreliable narration occurs in cinema as a distinct mode of unreliability. In defining ambiguous narration, we build on Semir Zeki’s neurobiological notion of ambiguity, from which we understand ambiguous narration as a mode that presents a series of questions consistently answered in mutually contradictory ways. We pay specific attention to Robert Vogt’s definition of ambiguous-unreliable narration in order to…
Kept in the Loop: Narrative Play and Epistemic Emotions
Narrative time loops can challenge key dimensions of story comprehension, including causality, chronology, agency, and continuity. But how can such temporally puzzling experiences contribute to narrative engagement? This essay argues that many contemporary loop narratives in fiction film and television seek a distinct kind of audience engagement, one that can be characterized as narrative play, a ludic invitation to actively engage with and decod…
Introduction: Time Loops, Temporal Uncertainty, and Problem-Solving in Narrative
Worlds in bodies: Complexity, play, and the narratively literate mind
In this introductory essay, we propose working definitions for the terms and concepts that frame this special issue, taking in academic and folk debates around the nexus of narrative, mind and play, specifically in relation to complexity. We argue that while human cognition is predisposed to storify experience, the mind itself is also storified. Because narrative is integral to the construction of reality and experience, we need a narrative liter…
Narrative Theory and Analysis (6 works) · Narrative (4 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Aesthetics (2 works) · Art (2 works) · Epistemology (2 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (2 works) · Linguistics (2 works) · Literature (2 works) · Philosophy (2 works)