[Commlist] Call for chapter contributions: Into the Other Worlds: The Multiverse as Theoretical Method in Postmodern Speculative Fictional Narratives

Into the Other Worlds: The Multiverse as Theoretical Method in 
Postmodern Speculative Fictional Narratives

Call for chapter contributions (Edited book to be submitted for 
consideration with Routledge)

Seen as a form of expressing and narrating the existence of ‘other 
worlds’, the multiverse has become an iconic trope to address 
philosophical inquires in a comprehensive, culturally dynamic way. The 
volume /Into the Other Worlds: The Multiverse as Theoretical Method in 
Postmodern Speculative Fictional Narratives/ is inspired by the 
relevance that the expression ‘other worlds’ has acquired in a world in 
which fiction is acknowledged as one more possibility of the real. A 
possibility that has come to strongly characterize the daily life of 
globalized societies since the 1970s, a decade that –for many authors– 
coincides with the beginning of Postmodernity.

 From this perspective, this collection aims to engage with the 
multiverse from the idea of ‘other worlds’, understanding it not as the 
appearance of another independent world (as is the case of DC Comics’ 
/DCeased/ miniseries), but as the collision of two different worlds into 
one of them (as is the case of the novel /The Lathe of Heaven /or the 
entire /The Matrix/ saga). This volume, therefore, seeks submissions 
that address fictional texts from the 1970s to 2022 belonging to 
“speculative fiction”, the field of cultural production that groups 
together several genres of non-mimetic fiction (Oziewicz, 2017). Under 
these guidelines, the objective is to bring together innovative and 
unpublished essays that analyze speculative fiction works in which 
thinking about the invasion of the diegetic world into the metadiegetic 
world, or vice versa, gives rise to sociocultural, ontological, and 
epistemological extrapolations.

Along with the remarkable popularity it has acquired first as a 
cosmological theory and then within popular culture in recent years, 
this volume aims to consider the idea of the multiverse beyond the 
immediacy of its being merely an excuse or scenario for the development 
of stories. Rather, it seeks to position the multiverse as a theoretical 
method in which speculative fiction narratives can work together with 
several disciplines in deeply pondering on different physical and 
metaphysical challenges. Thus, thinking of it as the 
collision/overlapping of worlds, the multiverse encourages us to pay 
attention to the influence that fiction exerts on world-building, 
providing possible frameworks for rethinking different aspects of 
temporality, space, self, society, and culture. Furthermore, it pursues 
to highlight the plasticity of the term by bringing into discussion how 
the critical issues of overlapping worlds within a fiction can also 
include virtual worlds, dream worlds, the afterlife, borderlands, etc., 
with due justification.

It is from this point of view that we invite submissions that illuminate 
how Literary and Media Studies could embrace the multiverse trope as a 
theoretical method that problematizes the collision/superposition of 
‘other worlds’, in the framework of speculative fiction from the 1970s 
to date. Only articles written in English will be accepted, even if the 
works analyzed are in other languages. We encourage submissions that 
contemplate cross-cultural, transmedia, and comparative approaches. 
Additionally, those papers which consider what scientific knowledge 
about the multiverse –in the terms exposed here– contributes to the 
field of human and social sciences (always from the analysis of 
fictional texts) are also welcome.

Proposals may address, but are not limited to, reflect on the following 
topics:

- the subject’s agency inside the superposition of worlds

- fiction in worlds-building

- the role of ethics within the idea of other worlds

- spatial and temporal weightings

- moral considerations

- the role of the self

- the role of serendipity

- the crisis between worlds

- liminality between worlds …

You are invited to submit your abstract consisting of a title and 300 
words by the end of November 2022. Please send your abstract and a brief 
biography to (cato.ang /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(cato.ang /at/ gmail.com)>.

Contact: Dr. Angelica Cabrera Torrecilla / UNAM / UAB / The National 
System of Researchers of Mexico


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