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Post-independent India has witnessed several horrific incidents of communal violence. The largest communal riot happened in the year 1984, in the capital city of New Delhi. But after the occurrence of the Anti-Sikh Riots of 1984, there was silence surrounding the incident. The silence was primarily caused by the trauma inflicted from the incident. There are reasons to believe that the silence was politically motivated too. However, the role fictional writings have played in communicating the traumatic memory of the incident was significant. This paper studies the novel Amu written by Shonali Bose to understand the representation of traumatic memory of the community. The paper attempts to problematize the decades-long silence surrounding the incident and the novel's role along with other similar fictional accounts in unravelling the truth of the incident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generally, it is known that the presence of popular novels in the local literary scene is not a new phenomenon. However, the enthusiasm for this genre still persists to this day and continues to dominate the local novel sales market. Nevertheless, popular novels have never been free from criticism due to their tendency to adhere to the same writing formula. Furthermore, they are often accused of placing women in improper positions. Nonetheless, Affifudin Omar succeeded in proving otherwise through his popular novel, Meniti Rindu (2013). The distinctiveness brought about by Affifudin Omar, particularly concerning issues, sets this work apart from other popular novels. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the materials used in producing popular novels within Meniti Rindu. It is conducted using textual analysis methods on the novel Meniti Rindu, guided by the framework for producing popular novels introduced by Deborah Hale (1999), consisting of seven materials: characters, conflict, a hook, plot, romance, dark moment, and a happy ending. The study found that Affifudin Omar critically and creatively succeeded in utilizing all seven materials in producing Meniti Rindu. Affifudin Omar departed from the conventions of writing popular novels without discarding its seven main materials. Instead, by addressing issues such as identity, apostasy, and more, he continually distinguishes Meniti Rindu as a significantly different popular novel within the market. This study is essential in showcasing the dynamics of authors’ efforts to uplift popular novels towards improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nick Bostrom's "simulation argument" purports to show that if it is possible to create and run a vast number of computer simulations indistinguishable from the reality we are living in, then it is highly probable that we are already living in a computer simulation. However, the simulation argument requires a modification to escape the undermining implications of the scepticism it implies, as argued by Birch. The present paper shows that, even if the modified simulation argument is valid, still it is unsound since it relies on the indistinguishability assumption that even in principle cannot be tested. To account for the unsoundness of the simulation argument, the present paper draws on John Woods' theory of fiction, to expose structural similarities between general fiction and the simulation argument. Though the simulation argument is unsound, it seems persuasive, because the argument immerses the reader in a fictive world with the help of tacit assumptions, leveraging just enough common sense to remain compelling while covering over an untestable premise. Simultaneously with the critique of Bostrom's argument, Chalmers' argument for the matrix hypothesis is assessed on similar criteria. In either case, both arguments rely on an accumulation of assumptions, both implicit and explicit, hiding the premises that are untestable in principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Re-reading Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's novelette, Mathilda, in the twenty-first century from an ecofeminist perspective sheds a new light on contemporary criticism, opening up multifaceted perspectives. There was a critical moment in British literary history when Elizabeth Nitchie transcribed Mathilda from the microfilm of the manuscript and published it in 1959, which unveiled this piece of revolutionary taboo fiction suppressed for over a century by the author's male relatives, chiefly Shelley's father, William Godwin. Written in 1819-1820, Mathilda is the only work completed during Shelley's lifetime. It is an artfully crafted epistolary work depicting the traumatic confessions and suicidal tendencies of the protagonist, Mathilda, a woman who isolated herself from society by integrating herself with nature due to her father's confession for his incestuous passion towards her. Regarded as an underrated work, Mathilda has often been interpreted from biographical and incest-related perspectives by literary critics, which relegates its literary merits although it is in accordance with feminist and ecological theories and feminine writing. This paper, avoiding biographical accounts and the author's life experiences and with theories consistent with those of ecofeminism, intends to show how nature functions as an effective instrument for the female writer to fictionalize her taboo story. By blending ecofeminism with feminine writing, this paper also investigates the interplay between woman and nature, and navigates how a female character courageously relocates her taboo story on a textual level from a feminist perspective in a natural setting, challenging the male-dominant Romantic tradition of the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authors create fictional characters; that is a "creationist locution". Artefactualism takes such statements very seriously and holds that fictional characters are abstract artefacts, i.e., entities that are both created and abstract. Anti-creationists, by contrast, deny that we need to postulate such doubtful entities to explain creationist locutions. In this paper, I present this debate in the form of a paradox, which organises the many existing theories of creationist locutions in a single logical space. This new way of framing the problem displays the crucial role of so-called "linking principles". In general, it seems that fictionality entails nonexistence, while creation entails existence. This is why "fictional creatures" are puzzling. I further argue that to create means to invent and to realise, and finally, that fictional characters are invented but not created, contra artefactualism. I thus advocate for a new kind of anti-creationism about fictional characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of fictional objects is a familiar one, the topic of fictional properties less so. But it deserves its own place in the philosophy of fiction, if only because fictional properties have such a prominent role to play in science fiction and fantasy. What, then, are fictional properties and how does their apparent unreality relate to the unreality of fictional objects? The present paper explores these questions in the light of familiar debates about the nature of fictional objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here We Are (2020), Graham Swift's latest novel to date, tells the story of a love triangle between three young variety artists over a few weeks in the summer of 1959. As it is narrated from the present-day perspective fifty years later, when the last surviving member of the trio looks back on her life, remembering in particular the events of the fateful summer which culminated in the tragic loss of her ex-fiancé, the novel at first sight resembles Swift's immediately preceding piece, Mothering Sunday (2016), which employs a similar narrative strategy and revolves around a similar central theme. This paper, however, argues that besides these similarities, Here We Are differs from Mothering Sunday in a number of key regards, which is why it can be read as its precursor's loose duology which complements rather than replicates it. This paper demonstrates that the novel not only combines its author's idiosyncrasies with the narrative forms and perspectives to which he has turned to recently, but also allows him, through metacommentary, to indirectly express his ideas concerning the social, ethical and aesthetic aspects of fiction writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]