literature as a intelligent system?

Event description:

The attempt to describe literature as a system is anything but new. One of the most prominent undertakings of this kind was by the Russian semiologist Yuri M. Lotman, who understood literature as a "secondary model-building system." 

But what distinguishes the conception of literature as an intelligent system, presented in this lecture, from Lotman's theory? Instead of locating the systemic character of literature in a specific textual­ structure, the approach proposed here instead suggests it is an interaction between the text and its recipients.

The starting point for the formation of the system is the textual moment that is commonly referred to by the term fictionality. This is precisely where interpretation comes in - an attempt to restore information to literary texts. And because representing individuals as fiction undermines such an informational function, interpretations of literary texts attempt to secure this informational character by mapping individuals with general statements about reality.

However, such general statements are developed by the recipient through pattern formation within the text. In this respect, pattern formation is both the goal of all interpretations and the regulative of their evaluation.

Literature appears as an intelligent system, because the systemic character of the literary text is never given, it can only be discovered within a heuristic process of interpretation, a process which, in this respect, is always open to revision. The assumption of the systemic character of a text represents a regulative idea of literary communication.

The event takes place online.

Registration by e-mail to Dr. Sven Thorsten Kilian

Further information can also be found on the website of the Institute of Literary Studies

Please book the event directly via Dr. Thorsten Kilian