Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology

Alice Bell is a reader in English language and literature at Sheffield Hallam University in England. She is the author of The Possible Worlds of Hypertext Fiction and the coeditor of Analyzing Digital Fiction. Marie-Laure Ryan is an independent scholar and the laureate of the 2017 Wayne Booth Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the International Society for the Study of Narrative. She is the author and editor of numerous books and is the coauthor of Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Nebraska, 2014).

“This book is a masterly summary of the progress made so far in the application of possible worlds theory to narratology and a valuable indicator of the many fascinating and thought-provoking directions in which research can be taken in the future. This book should be read by everyone with an interest in narrative theory.”-Alan Palmer, author of Fictional Minds “This collection is likely to become a kind of one-stop shop for scholars working on a range of related problems at the forefront of current narrative research: fictionality, digital media, transfictionality and transmediality, post-postmodernism, the poetics of science fiction and fantasy, [and more].”-Brian McHale, Distinguished Humanities Professor of English at Ohio State University

• List of FiguresList of TablesAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Possible Worlds Theory RevisitedMarie-Laure Ryan and Alice BellSection I. Possible Worlds - Theoretical Perspectives1. Porfyry's Tree for the Concept of Fictional WorldLubomír Doležel2. From Possible Worlds to Storyworlds: On the Worldness of Narrative RepresentationMarie-Laure Ryan3. Interface Ontologies: On the Possible, Virtual, and Hypothetical in FictionMarina GrishakovaSection II. Possible Worlds and Cognition4. Ungrounding Fictional Worlds: An Enactivist Perspective on the “Worldlikeness” of FictionMarco Caracciolo5. Postmodern Play with Worlds: The Case of At Swim-Two-BirdsW. Michelle Wang6. Logical Contradictions, Possible-Worlds Theory, and the Embodied MindJan AlberSection III. Possible Worlds and Literary Genres7. Escape into Alternative Worlds and Time(s) in Jack London’s The Star RoverChristoph Bartsch8. “As Many Worlds as Original Artists”: Possible-Worlds Theory and the Literature of FantasyThomas L. Martin9. The Best/Worst of All Possible Worlds? Utopia, Dystopia and Possible Worlds TheoryMattison SchuknechtSection IV. Possible Worlds and Digital Media10. Digital Fictionality: Possible Worlds Theory, Ontology, and HyperlinksAlice Bell11. Possible Worlds, Virtual WorldsFrançoise Lavocat12. Rereading Manovich’s Algorithm: Genre and Use in Possible World TheoryDaniel PundayPostface13. PostfaceThomas PavelList of ContributorsIndex