Prof Alice Bell
Professor of English Language and Literature
Summary
My research specialisms are stylistics/literary-linguistics (including empirical research), narratology, and digital fiction. Throughout my work I develop systematic approaches for the analysis of (mostly digital) texts, examine interactivity and immersion in digital literary environments, consider how digital technologies affect fiction and fictionality, and investigate how readers cognitively process digital fiction. My teaching reflects my research interests and I teach on a range of undergraduate modules and supervise postgraduate students across the English programme.
About
I am a literary-linguist and a narratologist which means I am interested in how language and narrative structure works in literature. My research focusses in particular on born digital fiction which is fiction that is written for and read from a computer and includes hypertext fiction, narratively-driven videogames, app-fiction for mobile devices, augmented reality fiction, and Virtual Reality fiction. I research interactivity and immersion in digital fiction and also the way that digital technology can play with the boundary between reality and fiction. I have published research on possible worlds theory, unnatural narratology, metalepsis, second-person narrative, fictionality, and "post postmodern" narrative. I recently co-edited (with Marie-Laure Ryan) Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology (University of Nebraska Press, 2019) and am co-editing (with Jan Alber, Aachen) a special issue of the European Journal of English Studies on fact and fiction in post-postmodern narrative. I also do empirical research, creating reader response methodologies and testing and developing existing theory.
I have undertaken several reader-response studies, collecting data from readers in order to understand how digital literary reading works cognitively. This includes studies on immersion, ontological ambiguity, second-person narrative, and hyperlinks. Much of this work has been carried out as part of the AHRC-funded Reading Digital Fiction project which I led from 2014-2017 (collaborating with Astrid Ensslin, Alberta and Lyle Skains, Bangor). The project combined research on narrative theory, cognitive poetics, and empirical methods and also delivered an extensive programme of public engagement activities.
I am currently collaborating with One-to-One Development Trust on the Digital Fiction Curios project which aims to preserve works of digital fiction produced in Flash which will become technologically obsolete once Flash is removed from web browsers in 2020. I am also co-writing a monograph with Astrid Ensslin entitled Unnatural Narrative and Digital Fiction (University of Nebraska Press).
Teaching
Department of Humanities
College of Social Sciences and Arts
English, Department of Humanities
- BA English
- BA English Literature
- BA English Language
- MA by Research, PhD
I teach across the English programme on modules including:
- Reading and the Mind
- Language and Style
- Digital Communication
- How to be a Linguist
- Describing Language
- Language Dissertation
Research
I am a member of the Humanities Research Centre.
External Funding:
June 2014: £243,159 from AHRC Research Grant scheme as PI for ‘Reading Digital Fiction’. Co-I: Prof Astrid Ensslin, Bangor (Ref: AH/K004174/1) May 2010: £740 from the British Academy Small Research Grant scheme as PI for 'Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology' with Dr Jan Alber (Univ. of Freiburg) (Ref: SG100637).
March 2008: £15,500 from The Leverhulme Trust Academic Collaboration scheme as PI for ‘Digital Fiction International Network’. CI: Prof Astrid Ensslin, Bangor (Ref: F/00455/E).
Featured Projects
Link 1: Reading Digital Fiction project.
Link 2: Digital Fiction Curios project.
Link 3: Digital Fiction Curios project.
Link 4: WALLPAPER project
Collaborators and Sponsors
One-to-One Development Trust; Dreaming Methods.
Publications
Journal articles
Bell, A. (2024). The Postdigital as Theme in Narrative Fiction across Media. Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies, 33 (2), 31-50. http://doi.org/10.7311/0860-5734.33.2.03
Ensslin, A., & Bell, A. (2024). Postdigital Reading Strategies in Emersive VR Fiction: Empirical Insights. Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies, 33 (2), 51-70. http://doi.org/10.7311/0860-5734.33.2.04
Bell, A. (2021). "It All Feels Too Real”: Digital Storyworlds and Ontological Resonance. Style (DeKalb), 55 (3), 430-452. http://doi.org/10.5325/style.55.3.0430
Alber, J., & Bell, A. (2019). The importance of being earnest again: Fact and fiction in contemporary narratives across media. European journal of English studies, 23 (2), 121-135. http://doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2019.1640414
Bell, A., Ensslin, A., Van Der Bom, I., & Smith, J. (2019). A reader response method not just for ‘you’. Language and Literature. http://doi.org/10.1177/0963947019859954
Ensslin, A., Bell, A., Smith, J., Van Der Bom, I., & Skains, L. (2019). Immersion, digital fiction, and the switchboard metaphor. Participations, 16 (1), 320-342. http://www.participations.org/Volume%2016/Issue%201/16.pdf
Bell, A., Ensslin, A., Van Der Bom, I., & Smith, J. (2018). Immersion in digital fiction. International Journal of Literary Linguistics, 7 (1). http://doi.org/10.15462/ijll.v7i1.105
Bell, A. (2016). Interactional Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology. Narrative, 24 (3), 294-310. http://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2016.0018
Bell, A. (2014). Schema theory, hypertext fiction and links. Style, 48 (2), 140-161. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/style.48.2.140
Bell, A., & Alber, J. (2012). Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology. Journal of Narrative Theory, 42 (2), 166-192. http://doi.org/10.1353/jnt.2012.0005
Ensslin, A., & Bell, A. (2012). "Click = Kill": textual you in ludic digital fiction. Storyworlds, 4, 49-73.
Bell, A., & Ensslin, A. (2011). "I know what it was. You know what it was": Second-person narration in hypertext fiction. Narrative, 19 (3), 311-329. http://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2011.0020
Bell, A., Ensslin, A., Ciccoricco, D., Rustad, H., Laccetti, J., & Pressman, J. (2010). A [S]creed for digital fiction. electronic book review.
Ensslin, A., & Bell, A. (2007). New perspectives on digital literature: criticism and analysis. dichtung-digital. http://www.dichtung-digital.de/editorial/2007.htm
Bell, A., & Georgiou, N. (n.d.). Multimodality, Transmediality, and Ethics in Post-Postmodernist Fictions of the Digital. Narrative.
Book chapters
Bell, A. (2023). Reading Digital Fiction and the Language of Immersion. In Ensslin, A., Round, J., & Thomas, B. (Eds.) Routledge Companion to Literary Media. Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Literary-Media/Ensslin-Round-Thomas/p/book/9780367635695
Bell, A. (2022). “You know, are you you?”: Being versus playing the second-person in digital fiction. In Iché, V., & Sorlin, S. (Eds.) The Rhetoric of Literary Communication. From Classical English Novels to Contemporary Digital Fiction. Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/The-Rhetoric-of-Literary-Communication-From-Classical-English-Novels-to/Iche-Sorlin/p/book/9780367555634
Van Der Bom, I., Skains, L., Bell, A., & Ensslin, A. (2021). Reading Hyperlinks in Hypertext Fiction: an Empirical Approach. In Style and Reader Response: Minds, Media, Methods. (pp. 123-142). John Benjamins: http://doi.org/10.1075/lal.36.07van
Bell, A., Browse, S., Gibbons, A., & Peplow, D. (2021). Responding to Style. In Style and Reader Response: Minds, Media, Methods. (pp. 1-20). John Benjamins: http://doi.org/10.1075/lal.36.01bel
Bell, A. (2019). Digital fictionality: possible worlds theory, ontology, and hyperlinks. In Bell, A., & Ryan, M.-.L. (Eds.) Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology. (pp. 249-271). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9780803294998/
Bell, A., & Ryan, M.-.L. (2019). Introduction: Possible Worlds Theory Revisited. In Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology. University of Nebraska Press: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9780803294998/
Bell, A., & Ensslin, A. (2018). Digital fiction and unnatural narrative. In Dinnen, Z., & Warhol, R. (Eds.) The Edinburgh companion to contemporary narrative theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edinburgh-companion-to-contemporary-narrative-theories.html
Bell, A. (2016). ‘I felt like I’d stepped out of a different reality’: possible worlds theory, metalepsis and digital fiction. In Gavins, J., & Lahey, E. (Eds.) World Building: Discourse in the Mind. (pp. 15-32). Bloomsbury
Bell, A. (2014). Media-specific metalepsis in 10:01. In Bell, A., Ensslin, A., & Rustad, H.K. (Eds.) Analyzing digital fiction. (pp. 21-38). New York: Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/Analyzing-Digital-Fiction/Bell-Ensslin-Rustad/p/book/9781138210516
Bell, A., Ensslin, A., & Rustad, H. (2014). From theorizing to analyzing digital fiction. In Bell, A., Ensslin, A., & Rustad, H.K. (Eds.) Analyzing digital fiction. (pp. 3-17). New York: Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/Analyzing-Digital-Fiction/Bell-Ensslin-Rustad/p/book/9781138210516
Bell, A. (2013). Unnatural narration in hypertext fiction. In Alber, J., Skov Neilson, H., & Richardson, B. (Eds.) A poetics of unnatural narrative. (pp. 185-198). Ohio State University Press
Bell, A. (2011). Ontological boundaries and conceptual leaps : the significance of possible worlds for hypertext fiction (and beyond). In Page, R., & Thomas, B. (Eds.) New narratives : stories and storytelling in the digital age. (pp. 63-82). University of Nebraska Press
Bell, A. (2011). Ontological boundaries and methodological leaps: The importance of possible worlds theory for hypertext fiction (and beyond). In New Narratives: Stories and Storytelling in the Digital Age. (pp. 63-82).
Bell, A. (2007). "Do you want to hear about it?" Exploring possible worlds in Michael Joyce's Hyperfiction, afternoon, a story. In Stockwell, P., & Lambrou, M. (Eds.) Contemporary stylistics. (pp. 43-55). Continuum: http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=126456
Books
Bell, A., & Ensslin, A. (2024). Reading Digital Fiction. Routledge. http://doi.org/10.4324/9781003110194
Alber, J., & Bell, A. (Eds.). (2021). Fact and Fiction in Contemporary Narratives. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Fact-and-Fiction-in-Contemporary-Narratives/Alber-Bell/p/book/9780367764937
Ensslin, A., & Bell, A. (2021). Digital Fiction and the Unnatural: Transmedial Narrative Theory, Method, and Analysis. Ohio State University Press.
Bell, A., Browse, S., Gibbons, A., & Peplow, D. (Eds.). (2021). Style and Reader Response: Minds, Media, Methods. John Benjamins.
Bell, A., & Ryan, M.-.L. (Eds.). (2019). Possible worlds theory and contemporary narratology. Lincoln: University of Nebraska. https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9780803294998/
Bell, A., Ensslin, A., & Rustad, H.K. (Eds.). (2014). Analyzing digital fiction. New York: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Analyzing-Digital-Fiction/Bell-Ensslin-Rustad/p/book/9781138210516
Bell, A. (2010). The possible worlds of hypertext fiction. Palgrave Macmillan.
Theses / Dissertations
Ivansson, E.A.C. (2023). Archival fiction: Archival poetics in American multimodal literature. (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Gibbons, A., Bell, A., & Peplow, D. http://doi.org/10.7190/shu-thesis-00582
Ondrak, J. (2022). Digesting creepypasta: social media horror narratives as gothic fourth-generation digital fiction. (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Bell, A. http://doi.org/10.7190/shu-thesis-00523
Other activities
I am a member of the AHRC peer review college and co-editor of the Cambridge University Press Elements Series on Digital Fictions.
Postgraduate supervision
I welcome applications from research students interested in studying in the fields of cognitive poetics and stylistics, narratology/narrative theory, digital fiction (including videogames), contemporary fiction, experimental writing, reader response research, and empirical methods.
I have supervised the following postgraduate research projects:
- Alternate Realities: Possible Worlds Theory and Counterfactual Historical Fiction;
- Drawing out Language: The Destabilisation of Information Overload through Conceptual Writing;
- A Study into How Contemporary Print Fiction Remediates Digital Writing;
- ‘Digesting Creepypasta’: A Genre Analysis of Social Media Horror Fiction;
- The Archival Turn in Multimodal Literature;
- Nothing As We Need It: For Chimeric Writing;
- Anacoluthic Syntax: Feminist Phrasings in Writing and Reading
Media
Alice is interested in how digital technology can enhance and evolve literature. She studies literature written specifically for digital media, which often combine text with images, film, and sound. As a literary-linguist, Alice is interested in how language works in digital fiction. She is also interested in how readers process these texts cognitively.