Fictionality And Infrastructure
MSU Affiliation
College of Arts and Sciences; Department of English
Creation Date
2026-04-29
Abstract
Recent narrative theory has generally treated fictionality as a feature of writing that serves a rhetorical, communicative purpose. This article argues for more attention to the continuities between literary and nonliterary fictionality, such as we encounter in law, contracts, and credit. Drawing on Charles Yu’s novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, it explores Clifford Siskin’s theory of novelism and work on fictionality and economic systems in the eighteenth century to show how the novel navigates the space between literary and “infrastructural” fictionality.
Publication Date
6-1-2025
Publication Title
Poetics Today: International Journal for Theory and Analysis of Literature and Communication
Publisher
Duke University Press
First Page
207
Last Page
225
Recommended Citation
Daniel Punday; Fictionality and Infrastructure. Poetics Today 1 June 2025; 46 (2): 207–225. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-11672643
