The body's fiction: Dennis Potter and the biological roots of narrative discourse
Abstract
This dissertation examines evolutionary and neurological models of narrative discourses in literary genres of the novel and the television play. This work explores points of convergence between the research of such neuro-biologists as Humberto Mahuana, Francisco Varela, Gerald Edelman, and Ira Black, the evolutionary psychology of Merlin Donald, the literary theories of M. M. Bakhtin, and the literary productions of British novelist and television playwright Dennis Potter. Recent research in the brain sciences applies the evolutionary principles of adaptation to all levels of cognition, from molecular chemistry to the linguistic behavior of human beings in networks of social discourse. Similarly, Bakhtin's theories delineate the adaptive interactions between the individual's momentary cognitive act and the wider networks of heteroglossia. Bakhtin's theories designate the novel as the emergent, polyphonic model of this private/public reciprocity. Also exploring the connections between the individual's biological cognition and his/her social domain of language, Dennis Potter's metafictional novels and television plays identify the limits of the printed novel as a model of neuro-social cognition. Blending together the idea of polyphony in the novel with the present-day electronic medium of television, as well as with a futuristic depiction of cyberspace technology, Potter's work explores the possibilities for bringing together biological and social levels of human cognition in an electronic literary genre that extends Bakhtin's literary theories into the twenty-first century.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Palmer, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Literature|British and Irish literature|Cognitive therapy
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