Conference: Fiction Lab 1.0: What are Fictions and Why Do we Care About them?A one-day event in Room 2001 Humanities, The Poetry Center, Humanities Building, Stony Brook University

What are fictions and why do we care about them? Above all, why do we study them, if they are, at heart, about things that are imaginary, made-up, even nonexistent? Fiction Lab 1.0 convenes a group of scholars from a diverse array of disciplines to think about the fictionality of fictions, the psychological structures that facilitates transportation into fictions, and the prospects for fictionality in the age of AI.

Thursday, April 16, 2026 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM in Rm 2001 Humanities, The Poetry Center.

The event is funded by a Seed Grant from the SBU Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) and the SBU Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (FAHSS) Research and Interdisciplinary Initiatives Fund. Sponsored by the English Department, Psychology Department, and the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook.

Participants:

Markus Appel University of Würzburg, Germany; Alice Gibbons Sheffield Hallam University, UK; Ming Doug Gu University of Texas at Dallas; Hannah Kim University of Arizona; Elizabeth Marsh Duke University; Karen Petroski St. Louis University; Marie-Laure Ryan independent scholar; and Dennis Yi Tenen Columbia University.

Hosted by Benedict Robinson, English Department and Richard Gerrig Psychology Department.

 

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE:

9:00 AM Coffee

9:15 AM Welcome by Benedict Robinson, English Department at SBU and Richard Gerrig Psychology Department at SBU

9:30AM Alison Gibbons, Sheffield Hallam University, UK, Understanding Fictionality Judgements via A Cognitive Model of Reading Autofiction

10:00 AM Ming Dong Gu, University of Texas at Dallas, The Invisible Hand in Fictional Narrative

10:30 AM Discussion between Alison Gibbons and Ming Dong Gu

10:45 AM General discussion

11:15 AM Karen Petroski, St. Louis University, Making and Losing Time In and Out of Fiction (working title)

11:45 AM Elizabeth Marsh, Duke University, Remembering Fiction

12:15 PM Discussion between Karen Petroski and Elizabeth Marsh

12:30 PM General discussion

 

12:45-1:45 PM Lunch Break

 

1:45 PM Markus Appel, University of Würzburg, Germany, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and the Experience of Fiction

2:15 PM Dennis Tenen, Columbia University, Machine Literature as History of Collective Labor

2:45 PM Discussion between Markus Appel and Dennis Tenen

3:00 PM General discussion

3:30 PM Marie-Laure Ryan, independent scholar, Hybrid Texts: A Challenge for Theoretical Approaches to Fiction

4:00 PM Hannah Kim, University of Arizona, Fiction without Mimesis: A Comparative Philosophy of Fiction

4:30 PM Discussion between Marie-Laure Ryan and Hannah Kim

4:45 PM General discussion

Closing