Frontiers of Narrative

A Book Series Published by the University of Nebraska Press

Context for the series

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 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, ethnography, sociology, media studies, Artificial Intelligence, and the study of organizations, medicine, jurisprudence, and history. The result has been an exponential growth of (international) research and teaching activity centering around narrative.

The Frontiers of Narrative book series aims to be a focal point for such cross-disciplinary work on stories.  Intended to highlight the significance of narrative in multiple settings and types of activity, titles published in the series will demonstrate the central importance of narrative across many domains of research.  Books published in the series will share a sustained, rigorous inquiry into the nature and scope of narrative; but they will also be marked by a variety of research foci, storytelling practices, and descriptive and explanatory methodologies.  Relevant studies include anthropological investigations of storytelling in particular communities, as well as sociolinguistic research on the role of storytelling in human interaction.  Artificial Intelligence-oriented work on the importance of narrative for modelling the nature of thinking and reasoning is also appropriate for the series.  Relevant, too, are studies in the History and Sociology of Science that examine the role of narrative in the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge; works that focus on the relations between computer-mediated narratives and traditional storytelling techniques; and projects that center on the forms and functions of modernist and postmodernist (as well as earlier) literary narratives.

Works published and forthcoming in the series 

• Inderjeet Mani, The Imagined Moment: Time, Narrative, and Computation (forthcoming in 2010)
• Michael Austin, Useful Fictions: Evolution, Anxiety, and the Origins of Literature (forthcoming in 2010)
• Mike Cadden, ed., Telling Children’s Stories: Narrative Theory and Children’s Literature (forthcoming in 2010)
• David Herman, ed., The Emergence of Mind: Representations of Consciousness in Narrative Discourse in English (forthcoming in 2011)
• Patrick Colm Hogan, Affective Narratology: The Emotional Structure of Stories (forthcoming in 2011)
• Brian Richardson, ed., Narrative Beginnings: Theories and Practices (2009)
• Hilary Dannenberg, Coincidence and Counterfactuality: Plotting Time and Space in Narrative Fiction (2008)
• Jarmila Mildorf, Storying Domestic Violence:  Constructions and Stereotypes of Abuse in the Discourse of General Practitioners (2007)
• Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck, Handbook of Narrative Analysis; English translation of Vertelduivels: Handboek verhaalanalyse (2005)
• Marie-Laure Ryan, ed., Narrative across Media: The Languages of Storytelling (2004)
• Alan Palmer, Fictional Minds (2004)
• Elaine Jahner, Spaces of the Mind: Narrative and Community in the American West (2004)
• David Herman, Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative (2002)
• Irene Kacandes, Talk Fiction: Literature and the Talk Explosion (2001)
• Ruth Page and Bronwen Thomas, eds., New Narratives: Theory and Practice (complete ms. under review)
• Anna Botta, Open Encyclopedias: Narrative Tactics and Postmodern Narrative (under contract)
• Bronwen Thomas, Fictional Dialogue: Speech and Conversation in the Modern and Postmodern Novel (under contract)
• Rochelle Tobias, Pseudo-Memoirs: Life and Literature in the Twentieth Century (under contract)

Contact information

Proposals and manuscripts should be sent to:

The University of Nebraska Press, 1111 Lincoln Mall, Lincoln NE  68588-0630, USA

For more information about the series, please contact the series editor:

David Herman
Department of English
Ohio State University
Denney Hall
164 West 17th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1370
USA

phone:  + 1 614 292 6123
fax:  + 1 614 292 7816
email: herman.145[at]osu.edu
homepage:  http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/