How many Batmans are there? How many Ulysses? Which one is the true one, and who gets to decide? Homer? DC? The reader? How has George Lucas fundamentally changed contemporary storytelling? (hint: it is not because he has made a few movies) What happens when Don Quijote meets his pirated self? In recent years, both narratology and big business have become more and more interested in how recipients of narrative mentally construct worlds, usually called storyworlds. In this research-and theory-oriented seminar, we will examine such storyworlds, their properties and politics, and the way they have been made use of since the beginning of culture. We will base our analyses on theories of fiction and intertextuality, as well as cognitive narratology, and we will investigate the interrelations between the concept of storyworlds and media history, moving all the way from oral mythmaking through writing, print and the mass media into today’s world of transmedia franchising and fanfiction appropriation.
- Dozent/in: Sebastian Domsch