Puzzling Stories : The Aesthetic Appeal of Cognitive Challenge in Film, Television and Literature

Many films and novels defy our ability to make sense of the plot. While puzzling storytelling, strange incongruities, inviting enigmas and persistent ambiguities have been central to the effects of many literary and cinematic traditions, a great deal of contemporary films and television series bring such qualities to the mainstream—but wherein lies the attractiveness of perplexing works of fiction? This collected volume offers the first comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and trans-medial approach to the question of cognitive challenge in narrative art, bringing together psychological, philosophical, formal-historical, and empirical perspectives from leading scholars across these fields. Contents List of Figures and Tables Introduction Part I The Attractions of Cognitive Challenge in (Post-)Classical Narratives and Genre Fiction 1 Aesthetics and ‘Active Discovery’: The Pleasure of Moderate Cognitive Challenge in Mass Art 2 Narration, Implicature and the Deceptive Puzzle Film 3 Cognitive Challenge in Complex Science Fiction: Knowledge, Reason and Threat in Narratives of Time Travel and Extraterrestrial Contact 4 Strange Loops and Nonhuman Realities: Complex Narrative Faces the Climate Crisis Part II Mesmerized Minds and Bodies: Art Cinema and Modernist Aesthetics 5 The Puzzling Film Environments of Fellini’s 81⁄2 6 2 or 3 Things? Polyphony, Cognitive Challenge and Aesthetic Pleasure in Godard’s (Counter) Cinema 7 Embodying Fragmentation in Film: The Spatio-temporal Logic of Cinematic Modernism 8 The Most Difficult Riddle: Paradoxical Personalities in Puzzle Films Part III Novel Pleasures in Contemporary Serial Television: From Complexity to Confusion 9 Multiform Television 10 ‘I Can’t Keep Track of Any of It Anymore’: Cognitive Challenge and Other Aesthetic Appeals in Community 11 How Not to Comprehend Television: Notes on Complexity and Confusion Part IV Reading, Viewing, Engaging: Conceptualizing the Pleasures of Being Challenged 12 Challenges of Enjoying Morally Ambiguous Character Drama: The Dexter Case 13 The Fascination of Failure: On Predictability, Unpredictability and Postdictability in Art 14 Expressive Challenge and the Metaphoricity of Literary Reading 15 Who Likes Complex Films? Personality and Preferences for Narrative Complexity Index "Many films and novels defy our ability to make sense of the plot. While puzzling storytelling, strange incongruities, inviting enigmas and persistent ambiguities have been central to the effects of many literary and cinematic traditions, a great deal of contemporary films and television series bring such qualities to the mainstream-but wherein lies the attractiveness of perplexing works of fiction? This collected volume offers the first comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and trans-medial approach to the question of cognitive challenge in narrative art, bringing together psychological, philosophical, formal-historical, and empirical perspectives from leading scholars across these fields"-- Provided by publisher