Unnatural Narratives - Unnatural Narratology

In recent years, the study of unnatural narratives has become an exciting new but still disparate research program in narrative theory. For the first time, this collection of essays presents and discusses the new analytical tools that have so far been developed on the basis of unnatural novels, short stories, and plays and extends these findings through analyses of testimonies, comics, graphic novels, films, and oral narratives.

Many narratives do not only mimetically reproduce the world as we know it but confront us with strange narrative worlds which rely on principles that have very little to do with the actual world around us. The essays in this collection develop new narratological tools and modeling systems which are designed to capture the strangeness and extravagance of such anti-realist narratives. Taken together, the essays offer a systematic investigation of anti-mimetic techniques and strategies that relate to different narrative parameters, different media, and different periods within literary history.

• focus on up-to-date research questions in narrative theory
• presentation of new narratological tools which capture the extravagance of anti-realist narratives
• systematic investigation of anti-mimetic narrative strategies
• profound analyses looking at different media contexts and periods in literary history

Jan Alber, University of Freiburg, Germany; Rüdiger Heinze, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany.

„Der Sammelband Unnatural Narratives – Unnatural Narratology beeindruckt durch die Vielfältigkeit des untersuchten Materials, die nachdrücklich vor Augen führt, dass in allen Erscheinungsformen des Erzählens – im mündlichen wie schriftlichen, im faktualen wie fiktionalen Erzählen, zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten und in verschiedenen Medien – anti-mimetische, unkonventionelle, verfremdende, d.h. nicht-natürliche Elemente ihren Platz haben (können). Darüber hinaus überzeugen die gewählten analytischen Zugriffe und der argumentative Aufbau der einzelnen Beiträge. Somit bietet dieser Band einen hervorragenden Überblick über den aktuellen Stand einer recht neuen, aber zunehmend Profil gewinnenden Forschungsrichtung.“
Christoph Bartsch in: https://www.diegesis.uni-wuppertal.de/index.php/diegesis/article/view/119/132