Offering an interdisciplinary approach to narrative, this book investigates storyworlds and minds in narratives across media, from literature to digital games and reality TV, from online sadomasochism to oral history databases, and from horror to hallucinations. It addresses two core questions of contemporary narrative theory, inspired by recent cognitive-scientific developments: what kind of a construction is a storyworld, and what kind of mental functioning can be embedded in it? Minds and worlds become essential facets of making sense and interpreting narratives as the book asks how story-internal minds relate to the mind external to the storyworld, that is, the mind processing the story. With essays from social scientists, literary scholars, linguists, and scholars from interactive media studies answering these topical questions, the collection brings diverse disciplines into dialogue, providing new openings for genuinely transdisciplinary narrative theory. The wide-ranging selection of materials analyzed in the book promotes knowledge on the latest forms of cultural and social meaning-making through narrative, necessary for navigating the contemporary, mediatized cultural landscape. The combination of theoretical reflection and empirical analysis makes this book an invaluable resource for scholars and advanced students in fields including literary studies, social sciences, art, media, and communication.

This volume explores the way that interpretations are constructed and pursued in political action. Each article in this collection develops a methodology appropriate to a substantive problem in politics. The collection is broad in its geographical scope, ranging from Ireland to South Africa, the USA to Finland. Collectively the authors redefine the notion of the "political" by considering the socio-linguistic construction of "the self" and "identity", looking at: the symbolic power of national anthems; discourses of sexual politics; the politics of political science textbooks; and the role of the researcher in fieldwork. Written to a practical brief, with no purely methodological chapters, each contribution addresses issues in highly contextualized circumstances.

"Interpreting the Political" explores the way that interpretations are constructed and pursued in political action. Each article in this collection develops a methodology appropriate to a substantive problem in politics.
The collection is broad in its geographical scope, ranging from Ireland to South Africa, the US to Finland. The authors redefine the notion of the "political" by considering the socio-linguistic construction of "the self" and "identity," looking at the symbolic power of national anthems, discourses of sexual politics, the politics of political science textbooks, and the role of the researcher in fieldwork. Each contribution addresses concrete issues in highly contextualized circumstances. "Interpreting the Political" reflects a commitment to methodological pluralism and the reconstruction of political science as a wide-ranging discipline.
Contributors: Josef Bleicher, Valerie Bresnihan, Terrell Carver, James Der Derian, Andres du Toit, Matti Hyvarinen, Marja Keranen, Veronique Mottier, Kari Palonen, Mary Robinson, Klaus Sondermann.

Offering an interdisciplinary approach to narrative, this book investigates storyworlds and minds in narratives across media, from literature to digital games and reality TV, from online sadomasochism to oral history databases, and from horror to hallucinations. It addresses two core questions of contemporary narrative theory, inspired by recent cognitive-scientific developments: what kind of a construction is a storyworld, and what kind of mental functioning can be embedded in it? Minds and worlds become essential facets of making sense and interpreting narratives as the book asks how story-internal minds relate to the mind external to the storyworld, that is, the mind processing the story. With essays from social scientists, literary scholars, linguists, and scholars from interactive media studies answering these topical questions, the collection brings diverse disciplines into dialogue, providing new openings for genuinely transdisciplinary narrative theory. The wide-ranging selection of materials analyzed in the book promotes knowledge on the latest forms of cultural and social meaning-making through narrative, necessary for navigating the contemporary, mediatized cultural landscape. The combination of theoretical reflection and empirical analysis makes this book an invaluable resource for scholars and advanced students in fields including literary studies, social sciences, art, media, and communication.