Narrative Truthiness : The Logic of Complex Truth in Hybrid (Non)fiction

Wiese, Annjeanette

ISBN 10: 1496226798 / ISBN 13: 9781496226792

Published by NEBRASKA, 2021

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 42949628-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Narrative Truthiness : The Logic of Complex Truth in Hybrid (Non)fiction
• Publisher: NEBRASKA
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496226798
• ISBN 13: 9781496226792
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Narrative Truthiness explores the complex nature of truth by adapting Stephen Colbert’s concept of truthiness (which on its own repudiates complexity) into something nuanced and positive, what Annjeanette Wiese calls “narrative truthiness.” Narrative truthiness holds on to the importance of facts while complicating them by looking at different types of truth, as well as the complexity, contradictions, and consequences of truth in the context of human experience.

Wiese uses narrative theory to analyze several examples of hybrid (non)fiction: works that refuse to exist as either fiction or nonfiction alone and that challenge monolithic definitions of truth. She examines memoirs by Lauren Slater, Michael Ondaatje, Binjamin Wilkomirski, Tim O’Brien; fiction by Julian Barnes, Richard Powers, W. G. Sebald; Onion headlines; comics and graphic memoirs by Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and David Small; and fake news.

Narrative Truthiness foregrounds the complexity that is inherent in human understanding and experience and in the process demonstrates the significance of the complex tensions between what we feel to be true and what is true, and how we are shaped by both.
 
 

About the Author

Annjeanette Wiese is an instructor of humanities and is the director of undergraduate studies for the humanities program at the University of Colorado Boulder.