The Frontiers of Narrative Series features interdisciplinary scholarship on narrative as it appears in a range of media. Studies in this series highlight the role of narrative across a variety of cultural and historical settings and outline new methods for investigating storytelling in all of its many guises.

The newest edition to the series, Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology, published this month. Edited by Alice Bell and Marie-Laure Ryan, Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology updates the field of possible worlds theory and postclassical narratology by developing this theoretical framework further and applying it to a range of contemporary literary narratives. This volume systematically outlines the theoretical underpinnings of the possible worlds approach, provides updated methods for analyzing fictional narrative, and profiles those methods via the analysis of a range of different texts, including contemporary fiction, digital fiction, video games, graphic novels, historical narratives, and dramatic texts.

Also new in the series is The Story of “Me”: Contemporary American Autofiction (Nebraska, 2018) by Marjorie Worthington. Autofiction, or works in which the eponymous author appears as a fictionalized character, represents a significant trend in postwar American literature, when it proliferated to become a kind of postmodern cliché. By tracing autofiction’s conceptual issues through case studies and an array of texts, Marjorie Worthington sheds light on a number of issues for postwar American writing: the maleness of the postmodern canon—and anxieties created by the supposed waning of male privilege—the relationship between celebrity and authorship, the influence of theory, the angst stemming from claims of the “death of the author,” and the rise of memoir culture.

Both books are now available for 50% off in our our Winter Sale!