Susanne Mathies

Research Student

Susanne Mathies After some false career starts, I am currently committed to a life of IT consulting, fiction writing, and study. I hold a PhD in Economics (Operations Research) from Freie Universität Berlin and an MA in Philosophy from the OU.

Current research

What does it mean to read, and to engage with, a work of fiction? I am going to investigate the theories put forward about this question in two different areas of philosophy.

My research will be based on Paul Ricoeur’s account of Narrative Identity. For him, fiction reading (or the reception of fiction by listening or viewing) is an important factor in the process of self-narration. However, his account does not fully explain the role of the reader during the actual process of fiction reading.

Kendall Walton’s account of the nature of representations interprets the reader’s engagement with a work of fiction as participating in a game of make-believe. I am going to investigate if, and how, this can throw a fresh light on the role of the reader as represented in the Ricoeur’s Narrative Identity account.