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%0 Thesis
%A Turnbull, Anna Teresa
%T Impossible body transformations: female character bodies and reader cognition in speculative fiction
%I Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen
%V Dissertation
%C Aachen
%M RWTH-2025-06260
%P 1 Online-Ressource : Illustrationen
%D 2025
%Z Veröffentlicht auf dem Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University
%Z Dissertation, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, 2025
%X This dissertation examines the representation of impossible character bodies in speculative fiction, with a particular focus on sense-making strategies that readers use to understand physically impossible representations of character bodies. The focus of this project is on processes of schema and blending theory, the influence of established genre conventions, and metamorphoses of gendered bodies. In particular, it focuses on how the character bodies represented challenge and question the readers’ expectations. The basis for this study is, on the one hand, Ralf Schneider’s cognitive theory of character reception, which is based on the fact that readers bring pre-structured mental models of character bodies into the reading process that are influenced by genre expectations and real experiences. These models are based on learned schemata of human bodies and societal norms that are questioned when readers encounter characters whose bodies deviate from these expectations. On the other hand, Jan Albers’ concept of ‘unnatural narratology’ is used, in particular the reading strategies based on it that readers use to understand text elements (e.g., characters) that are outside of what is physically, logically or humanly possible. This dissertation mainly deals with the assumption that readers who are confronted with bodies that defy familiar schemata use strategies to find meaning, such as ‘blending’ existing knowledge structures and genre conventions to restructure their mental models. The focus of this work is on speculative literature, a genre known for body transformations that violate what is physically, logically or humanly possible. This genre also allows for the blending of different genres, subgenres and elements from different areas that can be summarized under the umbrella term of speculative literature. Key questions guiding the research include how bodily transformations challenge previous knowledge structures, how genre conventions are subverted, and how gendered transformations empower female characters. The aim of the analysis is to understand how speculative fiction, with its unnatural elements, can alter narrative possibilities and cognitive perception. The three texts analysed in this work were selected according to specific criteria to highlight how speculative fiction’s manipulation of genre conventions and the exploration of gendered bodily transformations offer readers opportunities to reflect and grow beyond the limits of their own cognitive perception. The texts analysed in this project were selected according to the following criteria: a) they represent explicit cases of ‘body blending’ that go beyond or defy what is physically, logically, or humanly possible; b) the narrative worlds in which these character bodies appear resemble the natural, spatial, and temporal rules of the world as we know it; c) the characters affected by the transformations represented in the texts can be read as (biologically) female; d) the texts contain genre elements from more than one genre of speculative literature. In these stories, the grotesque changes that take place in relation to female bodies challenge the reader’s knowledge of bodies and especially of their own bodies, but at the same time the transformations represented also serve as a way to overcome trauma, (male) domination and oppression, as well as grief, and to transform the changed or changing female body into something to be respected or even feared. In doing so, the selected texts draw attention in particular to how the naturally changing female bodies, whether due to puberty, pregnancy, motherhood or aging processes, are still fundamentally seen as different. Each of the analyses follows a consistent structure, starting with a genre assessment that highlights the texts’ connections to classical myths, fairy tales and folk tales. The readers' reading strategies are then examined to understand the physical changes represented, focusing on the nature of the blend and its effects on the reader. Finally, this work examines how the body transformations represented impact representations of femininity and how they allow female characters to challenge normative expectations. By examining these character bodies—particularly those of female characters undergoing empowering transformations—it illustrates how the body, in its representation and transformation, serves as a critical site for challenging norms, engaging with affect, and expanding the boundaries of literary and cognitive experience. Ultimately, literature allows us to confront the limits of our own perceptions and offers new ways to engage with the complexity of embodied experience in the narratives we encounter.
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)11
%9 Dissertation / PhD Thesis
%R 10.18154/RWTH-2025-06260
%U https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/1015207