Fiction and Lies Online Conference

Org. Alison James and Anne Besson

Friday, October 2, 2026

Online on Zoom

https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/91053561510?pwd=aXF5aie0yI1gdC5pvDDpOnrs2ewhSx.1

Meeting ID: 910 5356 1510

Passcode: 122758

 

TIMES ARE SHOWN IN CEST / UTC+2

8:15am: Welcome and Opening Remarks

 

Session 1: Unreliable Narration, Genre and Gender

Chair: Anne Besson

8:30      Wanlin Li (Peking University), “Towards a Historical Poetics of Pseudofactuality: Uses of Dissimulative Narration in Edgar Allan Poe’s Magazine Stories of Insanity”

9:00      Satyam Sandeep and Upama Rani (Banaras Hindu University), “Unreliable Narration in Detective Fiction: A Case Study of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

9:30      Sushree Routray (Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee), “Unreliable Narration, Maternal Ambivalence, and the Ethics of Fictional Lying in Burnt Sugar

10:00    Olga Szmidt (Jagiellonian University, Kraków), “Fictionality of Pregnancy. Subjectivity, Gender and Body in Contemporary ‘Fake Pregnancy’ Narratives”

10:30-11:00      Break

 

Session 2: Uses of Illusion

Chair: Alison James

11:00    Ellen Spolsky (Bar-Ilan University), “Fictions and Lies in Memoirs: A Cognitive Account”

11:30    Dermot Burns (University of Galway), “Fiction and Falsehood in Robert Henryson’s Morall Fabillis

12:00    Alina Bako (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu), “Cartographies trompeuses et frontières fantômes.  Pouvoir, guerre et identité dans le roman roumain” 

12:30    Benjamin Demassieux (Université de Lille/Sorbonne Nouvelle), “Painted Deceptions: Literary Lies and Authorial Illusion in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33


13:00-14:00      Lunch break


14h Fiction Studies, the ASIFF Journal: Presentation by Charlotte Krauss


Session 3: Historical Distinctions Between Fiction and Lies

Chair: Françoise Lavocat

14:15   Eli Stok (Tilburg University) “The Curious Case of Melchizedek: Historical Figure or Figment of Imagination?”

14:45   Sebastian Balmes (LMU Munich), “Pragmatic Stances Between Fact/Lie and Fiction? The Case of Medieval Japanese Tales on the Origins of Deities”

15:15   Simone Müller (University of Zurich), ‘Fictionalizing Mental Time and Space: Narrative and Pragmatic Lies in Medieval Japanese Dream Accounts’

15:45-16:00      Break

 

Session 4: Intent and Reception

Chair: Stacie Friend

16:00    Mario Slugan (Queen Mary University of London), “The Problem of Technical Inaccuracies in Fiction”

16:30    Edgar Dubourg (Institut Curie / Institut Jean Nicod, ENS-PSL), “The Distinction Between Lying, Errors and Fictions”

17:00    Pedro Ponce (St. Lawrence University), “‘This Is a Work of Fiction’: Disclaimers of Fictional Representation Across Media”  

17:30    Katia Franco (California State University, Chico), “The Intent Behind Fiction and Lies”

18:00-18:30      Break

 

Session 5: Truthful Deviations

Chair: Charlotte Krauss

18:30    Iris Vidmar Jovanović (University of Rijeka), “Epistemic Status of Fictional Misrepresentations”

19:00    Sofea Khan, “Looking Sideways: Circuitry as Survival in Sharaz De and ‘Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant’”

 

19:30    Conference Ends

 

 

Zoom meeting

Fiction and Lies: Online Conference, Oct 2, 2026

Time: Oct 2, 2026 08:00 AM Paris

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