Entering the Multiverse

Paul Booth is Professor at DePaul University, USA, where he teaches media and popular culture. He is the author or editor of fifteen books, including Board Games as Media (2021), A Fan Studies Primer (with Rebecca Williams, 2021), and Adventures Across Space and Time: A Doctor Who Reader (with Matt Hills, Joy Piedmont, and Tansy Rayner Roberts, 2023).

“This timely and far-reaching collection explores the concept of the multiverse and its impact on contemporary media from a rich mix of multidisciplinary perspectives. Essential reading.” – Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education, University of Southern California, USA“Spanning across time periods and media formats, this insightful collection proposes varied and multifaceted perspectives on the growing area of scholarship focused on the concept of the multiverse. Offering different, yet interconnected, approaches and critical angles, Booth and his contributors successfully show that visions of the multiverse sit at the center of our transnational storytelling practices. This is essential reading for students, scholars, and multiverse enthusiasts alike.” – Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and Director of the Popular Culture Research Centre, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand“In Entering the Multiverse, Paul Booth and company demonstrate how the multiverse is itself multiversal, tracing the history of the idea over more than a century or two, and its development as a concept, theory, form, trope, and cultural metaphor. With almost three dozen essays, each examining various aspects and dimensions of the multiverse’s cultural roles, Booth’s book is an excellent examination of a popular and timely topic.” – Mark J. P. Wolf, Professor, Communication Department, Concordia University Wisconsin, USA“There are few concepts in contemporary pop culture as unruly and intriguing as the multiverse. This fascinating multi-genre anthology, traveling from Jorge Luis Borges to Pokémon, and from Marvel comics to K-pop, unpacks and complicates what the multiverse can be, what the multiverse reveals. Because the multiplicitous multiverse is, today, our modern myth.” – Carmelo Esterrich, Professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Columbia College Chicago, USA

• Introduction Paul Booth Part I: Skipping Stones over the Waters of the Multiverse 1. The Irresistible Rise of the Multiverse in the fin-de-Millennium Media Zeitgeist Tim Butler Garrett 2. ‘The Unsupportable Pride of Mankind’: Seventeenth-Century Utopias, Humility, and the Multiverse Aglaia Maretta Venters 3. Depictions of the Multiverse as a Labyrinth, a Cultural Icon Between Science, Humanities, and Fiction Angélica Cabrera Torrecilla 4. A Creative Deconstruction of the Cultural Strands in the Multiple Timelines of The Flash (2023): Introduction to the Online Resource “Multiversal Spaghetti” Chris Gerrard 5. The Multiverse as a Stylistic Structure Sem Devillart 6. Capitalism and the Multiverse: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Socio-Economic Influence on Cosmological Concepts Marija Adela Gjorgjioska and Ana Tomičić 7. The Non-Binary Multiverse Poem, Or Friday August 25th, 2023 Dusty Michael Perez 8. What Does It Mean To Be Eternally Alone in the Multiverse? Adalberto Fernandes 9. Lux in Tenebris Maria Faust 10. Tales of Two Multiverses: From Fan Service/Productivity to Shared Inflationary Fantasies Matt Hills Part II: Multiversal Constructs across Media 11. It’s a Trip. It’s Got a Funky Beat: Exploring the Sonic Multiverse through Hip Hop Sampling Ian Sinnett 12. The Shared Multiversal Power of K-pop Lore Videos and Videographic Criticism Louisa Ellen Stein 13. The Multiverse of Madness Nev Fountain 14. Young Forever(?): Looping Time and Fractured Futures in BTS’s Bangtan Universe Lauren R. O’Connor 15. “The Infinite Knowledge and Power of the Multiverse”: Intersectionality as the Multiverse in Everything Everywhere All at Once Shayna Maskell 16. Marvel’s Multiverse of Madness: The Implications of Alternative Realities, Variants, and Doppelgängers within the Marvel Cinematic Universe Rob McLaughlin 17. Where’s Wanda? Collage and Collapse Teresa Forde 18. Expanding the Spider-Verse: Infinite Possibility and Fan Plausibility Lore Whittemore 19. Turtleverse!: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Multiverse in Media as a Tool to Explore Diverse Genres Ricardo Victoria-Uribe and Nazario Robles-Bastida Part III: Multiversal Constructs Across Literature and Games 20. The Comic Book Multiverse: Creative Playground / Corporate Plaything Blair Davis 21. Multiversality in Children’s Picture Books: Portals to Many Worlds Ondine Park 22. The Atlas, the Resurrections, the Rising, and the Time War: Multiverse(ions) of Love from Four Fictional Universes Rebecca Gibson 23. Forget-Me-Not Rebecca Johns 24. Finding Yourself: Multiversal Identity Crisis in Ted Chiang’s Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom Amy Coles 25. On Wormholes, Link Cables, and the Limitations of Transmedia: Fan Interpretations of Trans-Spatial Discourses in Pokémon Video Games Ross Garner 26. Playing Across Planes with the D&D Multiverse Maria K. Alberto 27. Cards Against Monstrosity: The Arkham Horror Multiverse David Scott Diffrient Part IV: Multiversal Constructs Across The Self and Others 28. Teaching the American Multiverse: Power, Agency, and Identity in an Age of Consumer Choice Dustin Abnet 29. Reaffirming Japanese Identity through the Multiverse: A Response to Post-3.11 Uncertainties from Your Name Erica Ka-yan Poon 30. How to Travel the Multiverse: A Text World Theory Guide Matthew Voice 31. The Multiverse of Fanfiction Julia Neugarten 32. “Love Live the Empire!”: Star Trek’s Mirror Universe as a Form of Fan Fiction Lincoln Geraghty