[Commlist] new book: Narrative Complexity

We would like to announce a new title from the University of Nebraska 
Press Frontiers of Narrative series, which we hope will be of interest.

*Narrative Complexity***

Cognition, Embodiment, Evolution

*Edited by Marina Grishakova & Maria Poulaki***

*_http://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/narrative-complexity _**__*

“Encyclopedic in scope, /Narrative Complexity/ surveys a dazzling 
variety of genres, media forms, and theories about complexity, including 
artistic, literary, and scientific examples. Contributions by many 
eminent narratologists make this an invaluable work and essential 
reading for anyone interested in how the conjunction of narrative and 
complexity can be configured and interrogated. Kudos to the editors for 
introducing and assembling this remarkable collection.” *—N. Katherine 
Hayles, author of /Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious/*

“Challenging the distinction between ‘simplicity’ as primary and 
primordial and ‘complexity’ as secondary and derived from simplicity, 
these far-ranging studies make the case that human cultures and minds 
are inherently complex. They are indeterminate and uncertain. This holds 
particularly true for narrative discourse, which is at the heart of 
culture and mind. Understanding homo narrans means understanding the 
human being in the world in its most complex forms. As a consequence, 
narrative studies have to refine their intellectual 
instruments—conceptually, empirically, hermeneutically—in the ways 
impressively explored in this volume.”*—Jens Brockmeier, professor of 
psychology at the American University of Paris *

“This volume opens a new window on the emergence of narratology within 
the context of complexity theory. In contrast to its phase of 
pluralization in the form of diverse models and paradigms, narratology, 
by turning to complex phenomena such as self-organization, nonlinearity, 
recursion, and nonhierarchical relations in various media, is exploring 
new domains where the interactions between embodied cognition and social 
and cultural embeddedness are redefining the contours of narrative. 
/Narrative Complexity/ bears witness to the repositioning of the 
‘conditions of possibility’ of narratology.”*—John Pier, University of 
Tours and CRAL (CNRS), Paris*

The variety in contemporary philosophical and aesthetic thinking as well 
as in scientific and experimental research on complexity has not yet 
been fully adopted by narratology. By integrating cutting-edge 
approaches, this volume takes a step toward filling this gap and 
establishing interdisciplinary narrative research of complexity.

/Narrative Complexity///provides a framework for a more complex and 
nuanced study of narrative and explores the experience of narrative 
complexity in terms of cognitive processing, affect, and mind and body 
engagement. Bringing together leading international scholars from a 
range of disciplines, this volume combines analytical effort and 
conceptual insight in order to relate more effectively our theories of 
narrative representation and complexities of intelligent behavior.

This collection engages important questions on how narrative complexity 
functions as an agent of cultural evolution, how our understanding of 
narrative complexity can be extended in light of new research in the 
social sciences and humanities, how interactive media produce new types 
of narrative complexity, and how the role of embodiment as a factor of 
narrative complexity acquires prominence in cognitive science and media 
studies. The contributors explore narrative complexity transmitted 
through various semiotic channels, embedded in multiple contexts, and 
experienced across different media, including film, comics, music, 
interactive apps, audiowalks, and ambient literature.

*Marina Grishakova*is a professor of comparative literature at the 
University of Tartu in Estonia. She is the author of /The Models of 
Space, Time and Vision in V. Nabokov’s Fiction: Narrative Strategies and 
Cultural Frames /and the coeditor /of Intermediality and Storytelling/. 
Maria Poulaki is a lecturer in film and digital media arts at the 
University of Surrey and the coeditor of /Compact Cinematics: The Moving 
Image in the Age of Bit-Sized Media./


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