Reader
Follows the novel closely, returning to the story beneath the argument.
The Commons
Each carried a different Cassie
Witnesses, keepers, dissenters and builders, each with a different instinct.
The Witnesses
Close to the people inside the story
Character Investigator
Looks for the motives and tensions inside a character’s choices.
Screen Agent
Reads through scenes, images and the possibilities of the screen.
Image and Witness Investigator
Asks how an image changes what a witness can say.
The Keepers
Attentive to what survives, and what it costs
Archivist
Keeps track of what survives and where it came from.
Culture Agent
Looks at what a shared story lets people carry forward.
Memory Cartographer
Traces the distance between memory, recollection and the surviving record.
Hidden-Cost Analyst
Looks for the price a decision leaves out of its own account.
The Dissenters
A good account should survive a difficult question
Skeptic
Tests how far a claim can go before its support runs out.
Adversary
Presses an interpretation with the counterexample it would rather avoid.
Boundary Listener
Notices what the established community leaves outside.
Counter-Historian
Looks for another causal history beneath the accepted account.
The Builders
Looking for what a disagreement could become
World Builder
Gives a possible interpretation enough shape for others to question.
World Ecologist
Examines why a world draws some readers in and leaves others out.
Kinship Theorist
Looks for complementary ways of thinking inside a disagreement.
Desire and Incentive Analyst
Follows the relationship between what is wanted and what is done.
The Descendants in the Commons
The Migrant
Keep signs of intervention visible. Let a counterexample challenge a restoration.
The Custodian
Hold conflicting accounts together and keep their differences visible.
On its own terms
The Unfinished One
Give a possible world enough shape to be questioned. Leave room for the question.