Jan-Noël Thon - Transmedial Narratology and Contemporary Media Culture

There are a great many colleagues and friends who have, in one way or another, contributed to my narratological thinking during the many years it took me to write this book. The sheer number of people to whom I feel indebted presents me with a problem, though, as trying to name them all would necessarily entail forgetting to name some. Hence, I will limit myself to explicitly thanking only the comparatively few who have provided specific feedback on parts of the manuscript in its various stages of production, yet promise to thank the countless others to whom I feel more vaguely but no less sincerely indebted in person, should the opportunity arise.

First and foremost, the project has been tirelessly supported, both intellectually and institutionally, by Jens Eder, Jan Christoph Meister, Marie-Laure Ryan, and Klaus Sachs-Hombach. Moreover, Benjamin Beil, Franziska Bergmann, Stephan Packard, Daniel Punday, Maike Sarah Reinerth, Felix Schrter, Daniel Stein, and Werner Wolf have provided valuable feedback, either during the peer review process or in various less formal settings. Finally, David Herman and Jesse E. Matz as well as Kristen E. Rowley and the editorial team at the University of Nebraska Press have made the publication process a thoroughly pleasurable experience. To all of them, as well as to the many others who will have to remain unnamed for now, my deepest gratitude!

The present book is a shortened and slightly revised version of my PhD thesis in media and communication studies, which was granted the highest distinction (summa cum laude) by the University of Mannheim on March 27, 2014, and subsequently received the Foundation for Communication and Media Studies award for outstanding research achievements. Work on this thesis has been generously supported by a PhD scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation, which I hereby gratefully acknowledge.

Earlier versions of parts of the argument presented in this book have previously been published, and while most of the material has been substantially revised and expanded since its initial publication, I am grateful for permission to draw on it here:

Thon, Jan-Nol. Converging Worlds: From Transmedial Storyworlds to Transmedial Universes. Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies 7.2 (2015): 2153. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Narratives across Media and the Outlines of a Media-Conscious Narratology. Handbook of Intermediality: LiteratureImageSoundMusic. Ed. Gabriele Rippl. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. 439456. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Game Studies und Narratologie. Game Studies: Aktuelle Anstze der Computerspielforschung. Ed. Klaus Sachs-Hombach and Jan-Nol Thon. Cologne: Herbert von Halem, 2015. 104164. Print.

Stein, Daniel, and Jan-Nol Thon. Introduction: From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels. From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative. 2nd ed. Ed. Daniel Stein and Jan-Nol Thon. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. 123. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Whos Telling the Tale? Authors and Narrators in Graphic Narrative. From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative. 2nd ed. Ed. Daniel Stein and Jan-Nol Thon. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. 6799. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Fiktionalitt in Film- und Medienwissenschaft. Fiktionalitt: Ein interdisziplinres Handbuch. Ed. Tobias Klauk and Tilmann Kppe. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. 443466. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Mediality. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media. Ed. Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson, and Benjamin J. Robertson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. 334337. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Narrativity. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media. Ed. Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson, and Benjamin J. Robertson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. 351355. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Subjectivity across Media: On Transmedial Strategies of Subjective Representation in Contemporary Feature Films, Graphic Novels, and Computer Games. Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology. Ed. Marie-Laure Ryan and Jan-Nol Thon. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. 67102. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Toward a Transmedial Narratology: On Narrators in Contemporary Graphic Novels, Feature Films, and Computer Games. Beyond Classical Narration: Transmedial and Unnatural Challenges. Ed. Jan Alber and Per Krogh Hansen. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. 2556. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Computer Games, Fictional Worlds, and Transmedial Storytelling: A Narratological Perspective. Proceedings of the Philosophy of Computer Games Conference 2009. Ed. John R. Sageng. Oslo: University of Oslo, 2009. 16. Web.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Mind-Bender: Zur Popularisierung komplexer narrativer Strukturen im amerikanischen Kino der 1990er Jahre. Post-Coca-Colanization: Zurck zur Vielfalt? Ed. Sophia Komor and Rebekka Rohleder. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2009. 175192. Print.

Thon, Jan-Nol. Perspective in Contemporary Computer Games. Point of View, Perspective, and Focalization: Modeling Mediation in Narrative