The Queen's College Record 2020

Reports and College Activities
NEWS FROM THE FELLOWSHIP
Catharine Abell (Philosophy)
Since arriving at Queen’s in September 2019, most of
my research time has been spent completing a book,
Fiction: A Philosophical Analysis (OUP 2020). In it,
I argue that fiction is an institutional social practice,
and that construing it as such enables one to provide
accounts of various aspects of fiction, including
the determinants of fictive content and what it is to
understand and to interpret a work of fiction. On the
account I develop, although authors’ intentions play some role in determining the
contents of works of fiction, this role is much more limited than many philosophers
have taken it to be. Understanding a work of fiction deploys one’s knowledge of the
content determining rules of fiction institutions, while interpreting it involves drawing
inferences to the best explanation of why its author produced a work to which the
rules assign those contents.
Other research has concerned the evaluative role of realism in film, theatre and
television productions. Realism is an artistic merit. We often consider such productions
good because they are realistic. However, the view that works are better artistically the
more realistic they are has controversial implications. Because non-traditional casting
is often pursued at the expense of realism, it suggests that non-traditional casting is
artistically unmotivated. I have written a paper arguing that the artistic norms of realism
are sensitive to productions’ contents and media. Consequently, considerations of
realism proscribe non-traditional casting far less often than is sometimes assumed
and, in certain contexts, provide artistic motivation for it.
Marta Arnaldi (Modern Languages)
The first year of my Laming Research Fellowship
at Queen’s started with a visit to the University of
Jyväskylä, in the western part of Finland, where I
took up the position of writer in residence. During
this period, I delivered a course in creative writing in
a foreign language (English) and gave a paper at the
University’s yearly symposium on wellbeing and the
arts. This visit marked the beginning of Translating
Illness, the interdisciplinary research project that forms the core of my Fellowship. This
two-year project consists of a programme of international collaborations (Columbia,
Yale, Florence, Oslo), invited lectures (Columbia, Princeton, Central Florida), and a
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