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Over the past few decades of film theory, significant scholars and acclaimed filmmakers have established that documentary, just like fiction, must resort to ambiguous and subjective rhetorical figures to represent the world. This claim has led some scholars to conclude that documentary as a term referring to itself as being non-fictional might be disregarding its inevitable fictional elements. This argument may suggest that documentary, just like fiction, when representing the historical world fictionalizes reality. If we accept this claim as true, we need to ask whether terms such as fiction and non-fiction or documentary make sense when discussing the process of representing reality. Does this claim mean that cinema can only fictionalize reality and therefore we should eradicate from this discussion terms such as non-fiction or documentary?. The questions that this paper intends to answer are: Can the term fiction exist without referring to the term non-fiction or documentary? What roles do documentary and fiction play in representing the historical world? Are these terms necessary to communicate and understand the process of representing reality?. This paper has established that fiction and documentary are necessary terms that emerge in cinema narration as a means to mirror human experience's needs to organize, communicate and understand reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of recent philosophical argument concerning the distinction between fiction and non-fiction.Design/methodology/approach A critical view of the literature.Findings A consensus that had emerged that defined fiction in terms of the imagination, and imagination in terms of its functional role, has recently been questioned.Research limitations/implications The overview was written by a contributor to the field, and so may be considered partial.Practical implications There might be some implications regarding the ways books are classified.Originality/value The paper is not original, in that it puts forward points made elsewhere, however it is a completely up-to-date review of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L iterature and F ine A rts Kuzmic, Tatiana. Adulterous Nations: Family Politics and National Anxiety in the European Novel. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2016. xvi + 229 pp. $34.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8101-3397-6. Reyfman, Irina. How Russia Learned to Write: Literature and the Imperial Table of Ranks. Publications of the Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016. ix + 237 pp. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-299-30830-8. Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. Edited and translated by Kirsten Lodge. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2017. 184 pp. $12.95 (paper). ISBN 978-1-5448-13223. Panova, Lada. Mnimoe sirotstvo: Khlebnikov i Kharms v kontekste russkogo i evropeiskogo modernizma. Issledovaniia kul'tury. Moscow: Izdatel'skii dom Vysshei shkoly ekonomiki, 2017. 608 pp. R601.00. ISBN 978-5-7598-1509-9. Kharms, Daniil. Russian Absurd: Selected Writings. Northwestern World Classics. Translated by Alex Cigale. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2017. xxv + 254 pp. $24.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8101-3457-7. Berlina, Alexandra, ed. and trans. Viktor Shklovsky: A Reader. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016. x + 399 pp. $24.95 (paper). ISBN 978-1-5013-1037-9. Sandler, Stephanie, Margarita Krimmel, Oleg Novikov, and Maria Khotimsky, eds. Ol'ga Sedakova: Stikhi, Smysly, Prochteniia. Sbornik nauchnykh statei. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2017. 552 pp. R585.00. ISBN 978-5-4448-0611-1. Frolova-Walker, Marina. Stalin's Music Prize: Soviet Culture and Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016. xi + 369 pp. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-300-20884-9. Mazierska, Ewa, Matilda Mroz, and Elżbieta Ostrowska, eds. The Cinematic Bodies of Eastern Europe and Russia: Between Pain and Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. 272 pp. £75.00. ISBN 978-1-4744-0514-0. Beumers, Birgit, ed. A Companion to Russian Cinema. Wiley Blackwell Companions to National Cinemas. 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Mobilizing the Russian Nation: Patriotism and Citizenship in the First World War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. 284 pp. $99.99. ISBN 978-1-107-09386-7 House, John M. Wolfhounds and Polar Bears: The American Expeditionary Force in Siberia, 1918-1920. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2016. xviii + 243 pp. $49.95. ISBN 978-0-8173-1889-5. Horowitz, Brian. The Russian-Jewish Tradition: Intellectuals, Historians, Revolutionaries. Brighton: Academic Studies Press, 2017. 292 pp. $82.00. ISBN 978-1-6181-1556-0. Brenton, Tony, ed. Was Revolution Inevitable? Turning Points of the Russian Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. xx + 364 pp. $17.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-19-065891-5. Saburova, Tat'iana, and Ben Eklof. Druzhba, sem'ia, revoliutsiia: Nikolai Charushin i pokolenie narodnikov 1870-kh godov. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2016. 444 pp. $23.00. ISBN 978-5-4448-0558-9. Baberowski, Jörg. Scorched Earth: Stalin's Reign of Terror. The Yale-Hoover Series on Authoritarian Regimes. Translated by Steven Gilbert, Ivo Komljen, and Samantha Jeanne Taber. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016. xii + 500 pp. $40.00. ISBN 978-0-300-13698-2. Holmes, Larry E. Stalin's World War II Evacuations: Triumphs and Troubles in Kirov. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017. xiv + 231 pp. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-7006-2395-2. Glantz, David M., with Mary Elizabeth Glantz. The Battle for Belorussia: The Red Army's Forgotten Campaign of October 1943-April 1944. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2016. xxvi + 760 pp. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-7006-23299-7. Dumitru, Diana. The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust: The Borderlands of Romania and the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. xvii + 268 pp. $99.99. ISBN 978-1-107-13196-5. Hrynevych, Vladyslav, and Paul Robert Magocsi, eds. Babyn Yar: History and Memory. Kiev: Dukh i Litera, 2016. 328 pp. Hrn200.00. ISBN 978-966-378-470-0. Heftrich, Urs, Robert Jacobs, Bettina Kaibach, and Karoline Thaidigsmann, eds. Images of Rupture between East and West: The Perception of Auschwitz and Hiroshima in Eastern European Arts and Media. Beiträge zur Neueren Literaturgeschichte Band 347. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2016. 547 pp. €68.00. ISBN 978-3-8253-6548-6. Lovell, Stephen. Russia in the Microphone Age: A History of Soviet Radio, 1919-1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 272 pp. $59.95. ISBN 978-0-198-72526-8. Miller, Chris. The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR. The New Cold War History. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016. xx + 244 pp. $29.95. ISBN 978-1-4696-3017-5. Service, Robert. The End of the Cold War, 1985-1991. London: Macmillan, 2015. 562 pp. £35.00. ISBN 978-0-230-74808-8. S ocial S ciences, C ontemporary R ussia, and O ther Schulmeister-André, Irina. Internationale strafgerichtsbarkeit unter sowjetischem Einfluss: Der Beitrag der UdSSR zum Nürnberger Hauptkriegsverbrecherprozess. Studies in International and European Criminal Law and Procedure 27. Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 2016. 580 pp. €107.90. ISBN 978-3-428-14867-7. Burgess, John P. Holy Rus': The Rebirth of Orthodoxy in the New Russia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. xiv + 264 pp. $30.00. ISBN 978-0-300-22224-1. Kurilla, Ivan, and Victoria I. Zhuravleva, eds. Russian/Soviet Studies in the United States, Amerikanistika in Russia: Mutual Representations in Academic Projects. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016. xix + 286 pp. $95.00. ISBN 978-1-4895-1798-0. Marchenia, P. P., and S. Iu. Razin, eds. Rossiiskaia mnogopartiinost' i rossiiskie krizisy XX-XXI vv: Sbornik nauchnykh statei i materialov kruglykh stolov. Narod i vlast' v rossiiskoi smute. Narod i vlast': Istoriia Rossii i ee fal'sifikatsii, Vol. 6. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Ippolitova, 2016. 948 pp. ISBN 978-5-90363-102-5. Reisinger, William M., and Bryon J. Moraski. The Regional Roots of Russia's Political Regime. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017. xii + 268 pp. $75.00. ISBN 978-0-472-13018-4. Tönsmann, Susanne. What Is Citizenship For? Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2017. 218 pp. €49.00. ISBN 978-3-8305-3595-9. Gabowitsch, Mischa. Protest in Putin's Russia. Cambridge: Polity, 2016. 300 pp. $69.95. ISBN 978-0-7456-9625-6. Trenin, Dmitri. Should We Fear Russia? Cambridge: Polity, 2016. 144 pp. $45.00. ISBN 978-1-5095-1090-0. Raikhel, Eugene. Governing Habits: Treating Alcoholism in the Post-Soviet Clinic. Expertise: Cultures and Technologies of Knowledge. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016. xiv + 232 pp. $26.95 (paper). ISBN 978-105017-0313-3. Pallot, Judith, and Elena Katz. Waiting at the Prison Gate: Women, Identity and the Russian Penal System. London: I. B. Tauris, 2017. xx + 252 pp. $110.00. ISBN 978-1-78453-660-2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Works of fiction are alleged to differ from works of nonfiction in instructing their audience to imagine their content. Indeed, works of fiction have been defined in terms of this feature: they are works that mandate us to imagine their content. This paper examines this definition of works of fiction, focusing on the nature of the activity that ensues in response to reading or watching fiction. Investigating how imaginings function in other contexts, I show, first, that they presuppose a cognitive infrastructure encompassing at least one additional kind of mental state, whose role is to determine, to some degree, truth in an imaginary world. I then discuss the implications for the definition of fiction, showing that the definition should be refined to accommodate the structure that imagining presupposes: a work counts as fiction just in case it mandates us, not only to imagine, but to engage in a more complex mental activity, an activity that in addition to imagining, involves positing a backdrop for our imaginings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to provide insights into the characteristics of avid non-fiction book readers, exploring their typical demographic characteristics in relation to reading volume and frequency. It also investigates their comparative library usage in relation to avid fiction readers, as well as their motivation to read, and barriers to reading. Findings from the subset of self-identified avid non-fiction readers from the 2015 International Study of Avid Book Readers are interrogated to provide insights into this under-researched group.Design/methodology/approach The authors have used a single-stage mixed-methods approach, using data from both qualitative and quantitative items in an international survey.Findings The quantitative data analysis of this study suggests that avid non-fiction book readers were more likely to be men and older than avid fiction readers, and that they also tended to read less frequently, though avid non-fiction readers tended to read a greater volume of books. Avid fiction readers reported greater library usage, and thus unsurprisingly were found to have a greater borrowing tendency than non-fiction readers. Our qualitative findings around reading motivation identified a range of recurrent themes. The authors also found three key barriers to reading: time, book access and concentration.Originality/value The findings of this study provide unique insights into the characteristics, preferences and motivation of avid non-fiction readers, with the relationship between pleasure and the reading of non-fiction of particular interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sarah Broadie writes on ‘The Knowledge Unacknowledged in the Theaetetus’ for Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. Her paper makes two main claims: first, that Plato in the Theaetetus rejects the ‘additive’ picture for knowledge, namely, that knowledge is true judgement with something else (e.g. an account); and second, that in the Theaetetus true judgement relies on prior knowledge, especially if that knowledge is arrived at methodically. Thus, true judgement is not necessary for knowledge and sometimes knowledge is necessary for true judgement. Broadie's argument, roughly, is that, in the Theaetetus, true judgement is already a high-level epistemic achievement. She has a number of pieces of evidence for this. The first is Theaetetus 189e4–190a6, where Socrates stresses that a judgement is an assertion that results from a soul having a silent, internal debate. Broadie infers from this that a judgement involves reasons even if those reasons are not good reasons; judgement, for Plato, is more than a mere doxastic attitude (95–6). This already looks unfriendly to the additive picture. Once I have a judgement I have reasons, and when I have a true judgement, I have good reasons. If I have good reasons then what I have is reliable and secure. So, what more could I add to upgrade this cognitive achievement to make it knowledge? Broadie goes on to explore the alternative to the additive picture given in the Sophist and the Statesman. There it turns out that there may be topics that simply cannot be captured by the additive picture: cases where there must be knowledge of an object in the absence of true judgements about that object. This is Broadie's knowledge unacknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Life-long reading has positive effects on our lives and health. This study examines the ways in which adult library patrons read today. Using circulation statistics from four public libraries in the north suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, we explore the differences in reader preferences between traditional print reading (print book checkouts) and e-reading (eBook downloads). This data analysis provides insights on adult patrons' use of public libraries today (i.e. the most likely genre to be checked out are fiction and the preferred reading method is print). This paper also offers some practical suggestion on libraries' collection development, as well as readers' engagement and retention as they relate to technological advancements on book format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his paper "Obras de ficción, formas de conciencia y literatura", Josep Corbí raises a few sharp objections to my distinction between fiction and non-fiction, as I formulate it in my recently published Relatar lo ocurrido como invención (2016). In this response, I present first in a compact form such ideas, and then I try to answer to Corbí's criticisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper takes as its starting point the memoirs of a French sergeant who took part in Napoleon's Moscow campaign. After discussion of a number of war narratives from World Wars I and II, it brings out two features. The first is that the vast majority of these do not belong to the genre of fiction. The memoir form has been seen as more appropriate. The second feature is that the mode of narration used, both in fiction and non-fiction, has been that of literary realism, hence the title 'The Mimetic Imperative'. The paper goes on to discuss aspects of realism, such as attacks on it as being no more than 'reportage', the denigrating of the 'Reality Effect', and the 'Chaotic Fallacy', of assuming that the chaotic aspects of modern war can be replicated in a written text with war as its subject-matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I shall demonstrate the value of the concept of literary thickness - i.e. form-content inseparability - as a tool of literary appreciation. I set out the relationships between non-fiction, fiction, literature, and poetry in Section 1 and sketch a preliminary definition of literary thickness in Section 2. I argue that a convincing account of reference in literary fictions can be provided by means of literary thickness in Sections 3 and 4. I argue that the match between authorial intention and reader response characteristic of the experience of literary works is explained by literary thickness in Section 5. In Section 6, I test the usefulness of the concept of literary thickness against Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon an explanation of the proleptic, an understanding of time as being socially constructed within specific contexts, to interpret a series of dramatic sequences enacted in ethnodramatic pedagogy. The authors present two major arguments: (1) teachers can help students analyze the processes that influence and shape their identities by adopting a proleptic framework; (2) ethnodrama, a dramatic and dialogic approach to interpreting texts, creates an opportunity for students to evaluate the social forces that shape identity construction as they situate and reflect on texts within multiple contexts. The authors delineate the ways in which teachers can use ethnodrama to help students revise their understandings of the personal and cultural implications of texts by situating these understandings in different configurations of place, space, and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent and growing discussion in philosophy addresses the construction of models and their use in scientific reasoning by comparison with fiction. This comparison helps to explore the problem of mediated observation and, hence, the lack of an unambiguous reference of representations. Examining the usefulness of the concept of fiction for a comparison with non-denoting elements in science, the aim of this paper is to present reasonable grounds for drawing a distinction between these two kinds of representation. In particular, my account will suggest a demarcation between fictional and non-fictional discourse as involving two different ways of interpreting representations. This demarcation, leading me to distinguish between fictional and non-fictional forms of enquiry, will provide a useful tool to explore to what extent the descriptions given by a model can be justified as making claims about the world and to what degree they are a consequence of the model's particular construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the book "The Art of Sympathy in Fiction: Forms of Ethical and Emotional Persuasion," by Howard Sklar. Topics include the conflation (or close comparison) of fictional and nonfictional narrative reflects an equivocation of fictionalities that appear to operate on discrete discursive (if not metaphysical) planes, and the accession of fiction's distinction as integral to the interpretation of sympathetic depiction.