Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. List of Figures and Tables ix
4. Introduction 1
5. Part I The Attractions of Cognitive Challenge in (Post-)Classical Narratives and Genre Fiction
6. 1 Aesthetics and ‘Active Discovery’: The Pleasure of Moderate Cognitive Challenge in Mass Art 15
7. 2 Narration, Implicature and the Deceptive Puzzle Film 43
8. 3 Cognitive Challenge in Complex Science Fiction: Knowledge, Reason and Threat in Narratives of Time Travel and Extraterrestrial Contact 68
9. 4 Strange Loops and Nonhuman Realities: Complex Narrative Faces the Climate Crisis 93
10. Part II Mesmerized Minds and Bodies: Art Cinema and Modernist Aesthetics
11. 5 The Puzzling Film Environments of Fellini’s 8½ 115
12. 6 2 or 3 Things? Polyphony, Cognitive Challenge and Aesthetic Pleasure in Godard’s (Counter) Cinema 138
13. 7 Embodying Fragmentation in Film: The Spatio-temporal Logic of Cinematic Modernism 157
14. 8 The Most Difficult Riddle: Paradoxical Personalities in Puzzle Films 195
15. Part III Novel Pleasures in Contemporary Serial Television: From Complexity to Confusion
16. 9 Multiform Television 217
17. 10 ‘I Can’t Keep Track of Any of It Anymore’: Cognitive Challenge and Other Aesthetic Appeals in Community 236
18. 11 How Not to Comprehend Television: Notes on Complexity and Confusion 259
19. Part IV Reading, Viewing, Engaging: Conceptualizing the Pleasures of Being Challenged
20. 12 Challenges of Enjoying Morally Ambiguous Character Drama: The Dexter Case 281
21. 13 The Fascination of Failure: On Predictability, Unpredictability and Postdictability in Art 306
22. 14 Expressive Challenge and the Metaphoricity of Literary Reading 326
23. 15 Who Likes Complex Films? Personality and Preferences for Narrative Complexity 355
24. Index 384