Experimental Source-Text Processing on Thematic Objects. Theorizing with Procedural Variations in “Winter Journeys”




Ikonen, Teemu

PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH

2025

 Journal of Avant-Garde Studies

2589-6369

2589-6377

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1163/25896377-bja10011

https://doi.org/10.1163/25896377-bja10011



Formal operations on syntactic objects have taken the primary role in classifications of procedural writing. The article sets out to explore the side of proceduralism left in the dark, namely theorization and experimentation on thematic objects. First, the thematic is mapped preliminarily by juxtaposing Genette’s distinctions on thematic transposition of source texts and Bénabou’s “Three Circles of Lipo,” a model for combining operations, linguistic objects, and semantic objects. Then the complexity of manipulation of thematic objects is analyzed in the context of contemporary Finnish proceduralism. “200 578 509 309 952 Winter Journeys” by Markku Eskelinen and Jaakko Yli-Juonikas adapts Bénabou’s model, widened for combinatory narrative fiction. “101 Ways of Killing a Husband” by Laura Lindstedt and Sinikka Vuola presents an alternative view to the thematic(s), as its variations of a theme narrative underline the political dimension in source-text processing itself.



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