Edited by David Herman, Manfred Jahn, and Marie-Laure Ryan. London: Routledge, 2005. Paperback edition published in autumn 2007.

Click here to pre-order the paperback edition through Routledge. 

Introduction and Rationale

The past several decades have seen an explosion of interest in narrative, with this multifaceted object of inquiry becoming a central concern in a wide range of disciplinary fields and research contexts.  The "narrative turn," as it might be called, gained impetus from the development of structuralist theories of narrative in France in the mid to late 1960s.  Tzvetan Todorov coined the term 'la narratologie' in 1969 to designate what he and other Francophone structuralists (e.g., Roland Barthes, Claude Bremond, Gérard Genette, and A.-J. Greimas) conceived of as a science of narrative modeled after the 'pilot-science' of Saussure's structural linguistics.  Noting that narratives can be presented in a variety of formats and genres, structuralists such as Barthes argued explicitly for a cross-disciplinary approach to the analysis of stories -- an approach in which stories can be viewed as supporting a variety of cognitive and communicative activities, from spontaneous conversations and courtroom testimony to visual art, dance, and mythic and literary traditions.
 In large part, Barthes's call for an interdisciplinary approach to narrative has been answered in the years following the heyday of structuralism.  As accounts of what happened to particular people in particular circumstances and with specific consequences, stories have come to be viewed as a basic human strategy for coming to terms with time, process, and change -- a strategy that contrasts with, but is in no way inferior to, 'scientific' modes of explanation that characterize phenomena as mere instances of general covering laws.  A cognitive schema and discourse type manifested in both literary and non-literary forms of expression, narrative now falls within the purview of many social-scientific, humanistic, and other disciplines, ranging from sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, communication studies, literary theory, and philosophy, to cognitive and social psychology, anthropology, sociology, media studies, artificial intelligence, and the study of organizations.  The result has been an exponential growth of research and teaching activity centering around narrative.  International in scope -- encompassing Continental Europe, Scandinavia, Israel, the United Kingdom, North and South America, and Asian, African, and other nations -- this activity has also spawned interdisciplinary book series (e.g., Frontiers of Narrative, published by the University of Nebraska Press, Studies in Narrative, published by John Benjamins, and Theory and Interpretation of Narrative, published by Ohio State University Press).  Scholarship in the field has given rise, as well, to a number of internationally recognized journals in which articles about narrative figure importantly (e.g., Image (&) Narrative, Journal of Narrative Theory, Language and Literature, Narrative, Narrative Inquiry, New Literary History, Poetics, Poetics Today, Style).  It is therefore symptomatic that, in November, 1999, a symposium on 'Narrative Intelligence' sponsored by the American Association of Artificial Intelligence assembled computer scientists, designers of computer games, philosophers, linguists, and theorists of literary narrative.
 
However, the very predominance of narrative as a focus of interest across multiple disciplines makes it imperative for scholars, teachers, and students to have access to a comprehensive reference resource -- one that cuts across disciplinary specializations to provide information about the core concepts, categories, distinctions, and technical nomenclature that have grown up around the study of stories.  The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory aims to be just this kind of universal reference tool.  As a comprehensive one-stop resource for students and researchers in the many disciplines drawing on narrative theory and analysis, the Encyclopedia promises to be a milestone in the development of the field and to make its mark on future elaborations and refinements of concepts of narrative.  Thus, while providing ample coverage of structuralist models and features of literary narratives, beyond this the Encyclopedia aims to provide a comprehensive overview of paradigms for analysing stories, in whatever medium narrative happens to be realized.

Readership

The Encyclopedia is designed to be accessible for the student as well as a resource for the researcher.  Entries are written in a manner that is both reader-friendly and technically precise; entries also feature bibliographies that list general as well as more specialized sources for further reading. These lists of references enhance the pedagogical value of the Encyclopedia for students while also making it possible for advanced researchers to turn directly to state-of-the-art scholarship on a given topic.

Structure and Organization

The Encyclopedia follows the standard A-Z format and contains about 450 entries written by experts in the field.  Entries focus on relevant technical terms, concepts, and genres, covering as well the history of the field, various schools/approaches, major theorists, important debates, and the full range of disciplinary contexts in which narrative figures prominently.  
Entries are divided into the following categories:
 
3000 words:  mini-essays on major topics
1000 words:  major concepts
500 words:  concepts and terms
200 words:  concepts and terms
 
Entries begin by establishing definitions, setting out relevant facts, and giving brief examples.  They then discuss current problems or debates and, where appropriate, provide a review of the major literature. 
 
Click here to see a list of all authors who contributed entries to the Encyclopedia.

Editorial Structure

The three co-editors are (in alphabetical order) David Herman, Manfred Jahn, and Marie-Laure Ryan.  Following is some biobibliographical information about each coeditor:
David Herman teaches in the Department of English at Ohio State University. He has published several studies in the field, including The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences, Story Logic, and Narratologies.

Manfred Jahn is based at the University of Cologne in Germany and has published articles on focalization, represented speech and thought, and cognitive narratology in venues such as the Journal of Pragmatics, Poetics Today, Style, and Narratologies. He has also authored a widely used online guide to narratology and narrative theory, freely available at <http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm>.

Marie-Laure Ryan is an independent scholar and a former recipient of NEH and Guggenheim Fellowships. She has published widely in the areas of narrative theory, electronic textuality, and media studies. Her most recent studies include Narrative across Media and Avatars of Story.
Furthermore, 15 Consultant Editors assisted in the design and implementation of the volume. The following is a list of the project Consultants, in alphabetical order:
 
F.R. Ankersmit
Groningen University
The Netherlands

Mieke Bal
University of Amsterdam
The Netherlands
 
Charles L. Briggs
University of California, San Diego
USA
 
Monika Fludernik
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität
Germany
 
Peter Goodrich
Cardozo School of Law
USA
 
Irene J.F. de Jong
University of Amsterdam
The Netherlands
 
Sarah Kozloff
Vassar College
USA
 
Brian McHale
Ohio State University
USA
 
Ansgar Nünning
Justus-Liebig-Universität
Germany
 
James Phelan
Ohio State University
USA
 
Gerald Prince
University of Pennsylvania
USA
 
Dan Shen
Peking University
P. R. China
 
Paul Simpson
Queen's University, Belfast
Northern Ireland
 
Ellen Spolsky
Bar-Ilan University
Israel
 
Robyn R. Warhol
University of Vermont
USA
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