Self‐Defining Reading: Literature and the Constitution of Personhood

Why should criminology care about literary fiction? Literature, life narratives and telling untellable stories

“…But he also notes with concern that a number of his ‘redeemed’ interviewees base their narratives on a highly conventional ‘us-and-them’ paradigm of criminality: ‘Several […] expressed views about the essential nature of “real criminals” […] no less conservative than the views of police officers I spoke with’, and that their descriptions often rely on ‘artificial-sounding clichés’ (2001: 167). That resonates with literary philosopher Garry Hagberg’s (2010: 136) argument that if stories fail to challenge established beliefs or knowledge then they are likely to turn us ‘away from growth, from openness, to the narrow, to the familiar, to the […] closed’, as well as with Kidd’s and Castano’s (2013: 378) account of popular fiction, which differs from literary fiction in that it ‘portrays the world and characters as internally consistent and predictable’ and is therefore likely to reaffirm readers’ expectations rather than challenging them.…”

“…According to Hagberg, in engaging with literary narratives we identify with the character in his or her context of action […] in such a way that we(a)learn what it is, what it means , to perform expressive actions that evince belief in this highly particular way, (b) learn what it is like to be the kind of person who holds these narrated beliefs […] and (c) see the narrated fictional content as a rather grand metaphor for our own real or possible life-circumstances. (2010: 126, emphases in original)That thesis is supported by other responses to aufBruch’s work: speaking of his character in the Cuckoo’s Nest , Uwe continued: ‘In Warren I see myself in the mirror, and that helps me in the way I deal with violence’ (Theater aufBruch, 2006). An anonymous actor in aufBruch’s Nibelungs reflects on that story as a kind of metaphor for his own life: ‘Why are there people in the world who betray other people for their own personal benefit?…”

“…identify with the character in his or her context of action […] in such a way that we(a)learn what it is, what it means , to perform expressive actions that evince belief in this highly particular way, (b) learn what it is like to be the kind of person who holds these narrated beliefs […] and (c) see the narrated fictional content as a rather grand metaphor for our own real or possible life-circumstances. (2010: 126, emphases in original)…”

“…That’s what happened to me, too’ (Theater aufBruch, 2006). Literary fiction thus ‘expands our imaginative reach’ (Hagberg, 2010: 126). A broader imaginative reach appears to support Theory of Mind (Kidd and Castano, 2013); imagining other positions also makes it possible to see choices.…”