Narrative and Becoming

What is narrative? Ridvan Askin brings together aesthetics, contemporary North American fiction, Gilles Deleuze, narrative theory and the recent speculative turn to answer this question. Through this process, he develops a transcendental empiricist concept of narrative. Askin argues against the established consensus of narrative theory for an understanding of narrative as fundamentally nonhuman, unconscious and expressive.

Close readings include: Ana Castillo, The Mixquiahuala Letters (1986); Michael Ondaatje, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970); Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist (1999); Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves (2000).