It is commonplace for fictional content to depict immoral activities: the kidnapping of a politician, for example, or the elaborate theft of a national treasure, or perhaps the gruesome proclivities of a sadistic murderer. These and similar depictions can be found across a range of media, and in varying degrees of detail and realism. Fictional Immorality and Immoral Fiction examines potential conditions for transforming fictional immorality into immoral fiction, in order to establish what makes a depiction of fictional immorality and/or one’s engagement with it immoral. To achieve this aim, Garry Young analyzes fictional content, its meaning, one’s motivation for engaging with it, and the medium in which the fiction is presented (such as film, literature, theatre, video games) using philosophical inquiry. The end result is a systematic examination of fictional immorality, which contributes toward debates on the morality of depicting and engaging with fictional immorality, as well as the reach of censorship and other forms of prohibition, especially when the act depicted is of the kind that would be most egregious if carried out in reality.

The Art of Videogames explores how philosophy of the artstheories developed to address traditional art works can also beapplied to videogames. Presents a unique philosophical approach to the art ofvideogaming, situating videogames in the framework of analyticphilosophy of the arts Explores how philosophical theories developed to addresstraditional art works can also be applied to videogames Written for a broad audience of both philosophers and videogameenthusiasts by a philosopher who is also an avid gamer Discusses the relationship between games and earlier artisticand entertainment media, how videogames allow for interactivefiction, the role of game narrative, and the moral status ofviolent events depicted in videogame worlds Argues that videogames do indeed qualify as a new and excitingform of representational art

Author Representations in Literary Reading investigates the role of the author in the mind of the reader. It is the first book-length empirical study on generated author inferences by readers of literature. It bridges the gap between theories which hold that the author is irrelevant and those that give him prominence. By combining insights and methods from both cognitive psychology and literary theory, this book contributes to a better understanding of how readers process literary texts and what role their assumptions about an author play. A series of experiments demonstrate that readers generate author inferences during the process of reading, which they use to create an image of the text’s author. The findings suggest that interpretations about the author play a pivotal role in the literary reading process. This book is relevant to scholars and students in all areas of the cognitive sciences, including literary studies and psychology.

“Fearless, illuminating” criticism from a New York Times–bestselling author and legendary teacher, “proving . . . that true art is moral and not trivial” (Los Angeles Times). Novelist John Gardner’s thesis in On Moral Fiction is simple: “True art is by its nature moral.” It is also an audacious statement, as Gardner asserts an inherent value in life and in art. Since the book’s first publication, the passion behind Gardner’s assertion has both provoked and inspired readers. In examining the work of his peers, Gardner analyzes what has gone wrong, in his view, in modern art and literature, and how shortcomings in artistic criticism have contributed to the problem. He develops his argument by showing how artists and critics can reintroduce morality and substance to their work to improve society and cultivate our morality. On Moral Fiction is an essential read in which Gardner presents his thoughtfully developed criteria for the elements he believes are essential to art and its creation. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Gardner, including original letters, rare photos, and never-before-seen documents from the Gardner family and the University of Rochester Archives.

Documents eighteenth-century literary representations of atheism, arguing that opposition to atheism generated unique forms of religious belief.

The antihero prevails in recent American drama television series. Characters such as mobster kingpin Tony Soprano (The Sopranos), meth cook and gangster-in-the-making Walter White (Breaking Bad) and serial killer Dexter Morgan (Dexter) are not morally good, so how do these television series make us engage in these morally bad main characters? And what does this tell us about our moral psychological make-up, and more specifically, about the moral psychology of fiction? Vaage argues that the fictional status of these series deactivates rational, deliberate moral evaluation, making the spectator rely on moral emotions and intuitions that are relatively easy to manipulate with narrative strategies. Nevertheless, she also argues that these series regularly encourage reactivation of deliberate, moral evaluation. In so doing, these fictional series can teach us something about ourselves as moral beings—what our moral intuitions and emotions are, and how these might differ from deliberate, moral evaluation.

Iris Murdoch and Morality provides a close focus on moral issues in Murdoch's novels, philosophy and theology. It situates Murdoch within current theoretical debates and develops an understanding of her work as a crucial link between twentieth and twenty-first century writing and theory.