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The frontiers of fiction

Round table

Round table organized by Prof. François Recanati, Philosophy of Language and Mind Chair, Collège de France.

February 21, 2022 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m

  • Collège de France
    Amphithéâtre Marguerite de Navarre
    11, place Marcelin-Berthelot
    75005 Paris
Nightmares of the Chester Fondue Lover (detail) Winsor McCay © Commons.

The question of the boundaries of fiction arises from what, paraphrasing Houellebecq, might be called the extension of the domain of fiction. We've gone so far as to speak of panfictionalism: everything would be fiction, or at the very least, all discourse would be fictional to some degree. But what exactly is fiction? What is the criterion for distinguishing fictional from non-fictional? A number of professors at the Collège de France, joined by other colleagues, have taken up this question and propose to tackle it by crossing disciplines: history, philosophy, literary theory.

With the participation of : Patrick Boucheron (Collège de France), Pascal Engel (EHESS), Stacie Friend (University of London and Collège de France), Françoise Lavocat (Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle), William Marx (Collège de France) and François Récanati (Collège de France).