Fiction and Lies Online Conference
Org. Alison James and Anne Besson
Friday, October 2, 2026
Online on Zoom
https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/91053561510?pwd=aXF5aie0yI1gdC5pvDDpOnrs2ewhSx.1
Meeting ID: 910 5356 1510
Passcode: 122758
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TIMES ARE SHOWN IN CEST / UTC+2
8:15am: Welcome and Opening Remarks
Session 1: Unreliable Narration, Genre and Gender
Chair: Anne Besson
8:30 Wanlin Li (Peking University), “Towards a Historical Poetics of Pseudofactuality: Uses of Dissimulative Narration in Edgar Allan Poe’s Magazine Stories of Insanity”
9:00 Satyam Sandeep and Upama Rani (Banaras Hindu University), “Unreliable Narration in Detective Fiction: A Case Study of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”
9:30 Sushree Routray (Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee), “Unreliable Narration, Maternal Ambivalence, and the Ethics of Fictional Lying in Burnt Sugar”
10:00 Olga Szmidt (Jagiellonian University, Kraków), “Fictionality of Pregnancy. Subjectivity, Gender and Body in Contemporary ‘Fake Pregnancy’ Narratives”
10:30-11:00 Break
Session 2: Uses of Illusion
Chair: Alison James
11:00 Ellen Spolsky (Bar-Ilan University), “Fictions and Lies in Memoirs: A Cognitive Account”
11:30 Dermot Burns (University of Galway), “Fiction and Falsehood in Robert Henryson’s Morall Fabillis”
12:00 Alina Bako (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu), “Cartographies trompeuses et frontières fantômes. Pouvoir, guerre et identité dans le roman roumain”
12:30 Benjamin Demassieux (Université de Lille/Sorbonne Nouvelle), “Painted Deceptions: Literary Lies and Authorial Illusion in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33”
13:00-14:00 Lunch break
14h Fiction Studies, the ASIFF Journal: Presentation by Charlotte Krauss
Session 3: Historical Distinctions Between Fiction and Lies
Chair: Françoise Lavocat
14:15 Eli Stok (Tilburg University) “The Curious Case of Melchizedek: Historical Figure or Figment of Imagination?”
14:45 Sebastian Balmes (LMU Munich), “Pragmatic Stances Between Fact/Lie and Fiction? The Case of Medieval Japanese Tales on the Origins of Deities”
15:15 Simone Müller (University of Zurich), ‘Fictionalizing Mental Time and Space: Narrative and Pragmatic Lies in Medieval Japanese Dream Accounts’
15:45-16:00 Break
Session 4: Intent and Reception
Chair: Stacie Friend
16:00 Mario Slugan (Queen Mary University of London), “The Problem of Technical Inaccuracies in Fiction”
16:30 Edgar Dubourg (Institut Curie / Institut Jean Nicod, ENS-PSL), “The Distinction Between Lying, Errors and Fictions”
17:00 Pedro Ponce (St. Lawrence University), “‘This Is a Work of Fiction’: Disclaimers of Fictional Representation Across Media”
17:30 Katia Franco (California State University, Chico), “The Intent Behind Fiction and Lies”
18:00-18:30 Break
Session 5: Truthful Deviations
Chair: Charlotte Krauss
18:30 Iris Vidmar Jovanović (University of Rijeka), “Epistemic Status of Fictional Misrepresentations”
19:00 Sofea Khan, “Looking Sideways: Circuitry as Survival in Sharaz De and ‘Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant’”
19:30 Conference Ends
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Zoom meeting
Fiction and Lies: Online Conference, Oct 2, 2026
Time: Oct 2, 2026 08:00 AM Paris
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Meeting ID: 910 5356 1510
Passcode: 122758
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