Dennis Tenen (Columbia)

The Computational Archaeology of Fictional Space

Abstract: In this paper I propose to reconsider theories of diegetic space which rely on explicit framing (i.e. "two people walk into a room" or "in Spain"). Rather than looking for maps, I define space in terms of grammatical categories denoting objects. The emphasis on objects leads to a method for literary archaeology, informed by cognitive theory and anthropology. If the universe is made of atoms, a fictional world is also made up of atomic relationships that form basic, stable configurations, or, what I call, *narratological primitives.* I construct several such basic spatial buildings blocks here---*diegetic density* and *clutter distance*. Their application to a well-explored body of Victorian novels challenges several long standing historical intuitions related to the development of material culture in the nineteenth century.

Bio: Dennis Tenen is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he is a co-founder of Columbia's Group for Experimental Research Methods in the Humanities. Stanford University Press published his book Plain Text: The Poetics of Computation in June 2017.