In a recent book (Lying and insincerity, Oxford University Press, 2018), Andreas Stokke argues that one lies iff says something believes to be false, thereby proposing it becomes common ground. This paper shows Stokke’s proposal is unable draw the right distinctions about insincere performative utterances. The objection also has repercussions on theories of assertion, because poses novel challe...

This paper identifies and discusses the western vernacular and minimalist tendencies in Norman Mailer’s 1980 Pulitzer Prize winning “true-life story” The Executioner’s Song. Mailer’s use of a lean, often flat style of narration is read in relation to Truman Capote’s “non-fiction novel” In Cold Blood to measure the extent to which Mailer moved beyond a conventional novelistic approach. The artic...