Current PhD Students

Ryohei Hashimoto

Thesis Title:

Literary Characterisation and Predictive Processing

Supervisor:

Professor Richard Walsh

Description:

In recent years, studies on literary characters have focused more on the reader’s cognition. A predominant view within the field sees characters as fictional beings represented as the mental model by the reader, which is the notional product of the characterization process. However, this view overlooks the process by which characters are continually formed by the cognitive dynamism of the reader. In exploring this process of interpretative characterization, I will refer to the framework of predictive processing. Predictive processing is a framework based on the principle that human brains are predicting machines, which continuously work in the direction of minimizing errors. Using this framework, I will demonstrate how the cognitive processes of the reader’s prediction, prediction error, and its modification work within character formation. My PhD research does not merely introduce findings from outside literary studies in a one-sided way but aims to broaden the framework of predictive processing itself. By exploring issues such as the fictionality and rhetoricity of literary characters that cannot be fully accounted for in existing predictive processing frameworks, my study aims to provide a new scaffold in both fields.

My broader research interests include narrative studies, modernist literature and animal studies.