We are delighted to welcome Richard Walsh to the Platform, who joins us as a Visiting Fellow in the Narrative and Cognition Lab. Richard is a Professor of Narrative Studies in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. He will be a Visiting Fellow in the Narrative and Cognition Lab until the end of January 2025.
Read on for our interview with Richard about his research and interests.
- If your research was a film, what would the title be?
My first thought was Apocalypse Now, but perhaps I’ll go with something more nuanced, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; or maybe Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I’m a narrative theorist, I could make a semi-plausible case for almost any film title.
- What will you be doing during your Visiting Fellowship?
I shall be mainly interrogating the problem of the implicit with respect to narrative; the way in which scholarship on the intersection between narrative and cognition, whether within the field of narratology or in philosophy of mind, seems to exhibit a dependence upon narrative before narrative. This is a key feature of current debates around narrative selfhood, but it is also an issue that extends into the domain of broader and more basic questions about the place of rudimentary narrative form within cognition.
- What expertise and experiences will you be drawing on during the fellowship?
I have published widely on theoretical aspects of narrative, both as a cultural phenomenon and as a mode of cognition. My work has touched upon, for example, the communicative force of fictionality, narrating complexity, dreaming as narration, narrative authority and the law, narrative and the self, the commonality of music and narrative, visual narrative, interactive and emergent narrative, and narrative reflexiveness. The scope of this work has involved me in a series of radically interdisciplinary collaborations (with, among others, biologists, computer scientists, sociologists, mathematicians), requiring me to develop a model of interdisciplinary dialogue as a methodological practice.
- Why are you excited about working in The Platform?
I’m excited to have the opportunity to engage with and learn from colleagues with quite different ideas and agendas, both within the Narrative and Cognition Lab and across the Platform as a whole. It is a great opportunity to explore shared interests within the capacious fold of the medical humanities.
- What changes would you like to see as a result of your research?
My research aspirations with respect to my own field of narratology are to set the relation between narrative and cognition upon a new theoretical footing, and to open significant new avenues for work in narrative studies, reinvigorating its scope and relevance. With respect to the larger academic community I aspire to give substance to the claim that narrative theory has something to offer in diverse disciplinary contexts, wherever assumptions and ideas about narrative are in play. With respect to the broader public, I aspire to help provide the means and occasion for people to like stories a bit less and respect them a bit more.
- What interests or hobbies do you have outside your research that might surprise people?
I have a wide range of non-academic interests and hobbies, any one of which might surprise people if it came up suddenly. For example, I have a long-standing enthusiasm for photography, and one of my current projects involves taking deliberately out-of-focus photos. The idea is to create effects congruent with the aesthetic and cognitive experience of short-sightedness, putting you in the position of trying to read a scene that you can’t quite discern. I call them myopics.
We warmly welcome Richard to Durham and look forward to working with him.
