Alice Bell is a reader in English language and literature at Sheffield Hallam University in England. She is the author of The Possible Worlds of Hypertext Fiction and the coeditor of Analyzing Digital Fiction. Marie-Laure Ryan is an independent scholar and the laureate of the 2017 Wayne Booth Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the International Society for the Study of Narrative. She is the author and editor of numerous books and is the coauthor of Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Nebraska, 2014).
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Alice Bell is a reader in English language and literature at Sheffield Hallam University in England. She is the author of The Possible Worlds of Hypertext Fiction and the coeditor of Analyzing Digital Fiction. Marie-Laure Ryan is an independent scholar and the laureate of the 2017 Wayne Booth Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the International Society for the Study of Narrative. She is the author and editor of numerous books and is the coauthor of Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Nebraska, 2014).
 

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Introduction: Possible Worlds Theory Revisited
Marie-Laure Ryan and Alice Bell
Part 1. Theoretical Perspectives of Possible Worlds
1. Porfyry’s Tree for the Concept of Fictional Worlds
Lubomír Doležel
2. From Possible Worlds to Storyworlds: On the Worldness of Narrative Representation
Marie-Laure Ryan
3. Interface Ontologies: On the Possible, Virtual, and Hypothetical in Fiction
Marina Grishakova
Part 2. Possible Worlds and Cognition
4. Ungrounding Fictional Worlds: An Enactivist Perspective on the “Worldlikeness” of Fiction
Marco Caracciolo
5. Postmodern Play with Worlds: The Case of At Swim-Two-Birds
W. Michelle Wang
6. Logical Contradictions, Possible Worlds Theory, and the Embodied Mind
Jan Alber
Part 3. Possible Worlds and Literary Genres
7. Escape into Alternative Worlds and Time(s) in Jack London’s The Star Rover
Christoph Bartsch
8. “As Many Worlds as Original Artists”: Possible Worlds Theory and the Literature of Fantasy
Thomas L. Martin
9. The Best/Worst of All Possible Worlds? Utopia, Dystopia, and Possible Worlds Theory
Mattison Schuknecht
Part 4. Possible Worlds and Digital Media
10. Digital Fictionality: Possible Worlds Theory, Ontology, and Hyperlinks
Alice Bell
11. Possible Worlds, Virtual Worlds
Françoise Lavocat
12. Rereading Manovich’s Algorithm: Genre and Use in Possible Worlds Theory
Daniel Punday
Postface
Thomas G. Pavel
Contributors
Index