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Gibt es ein postfaktisches Erzählen? In öffentlichen Diskursen ist derzeit häufig kritisch von einem ‚postfaktischen Zeitalter‘ die Rede. Zugleich wächst die Sehnsucht nach neuen, ebenso glaubhaften wie visionären Narrativen, die wesentliche Grundlagen unseres sozialen, kulturellen und politischen Miteinanders in einer als krisenhaft empfundenen Umbruchsituation neu erzählen und die sich, so die Hoffnung, gegen die Lügengeschichten der Populisten durchsetzen können. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist in jüngster Zeit eine Debatte um die Bedeutung, die Funktion und den Nutzen des Konzepts des ‚postfaktischen Erzählens‘ entstanden. Unter Rückgriff auf Theorien, Erkenntnisse und Methoden der Erzählforschung wird in den Beiträgen dieses interdisziplinären Bandes das Verhältnis des ‚Post-Faktischen‘ zum Narrativen untersucht und zugleich eine Bestimmung der Kernbegriffe der Debatte wie ‚post-faktisch‘ und ‚post-truth‘, ‚Wirklichkeit‘ und ‚Wahrheit‘, ‚Ereignisse‘ und ‚Geschehen‘ sowie ‚Erzählungen‘, ‚Geschichten‘ und ‚Narrative‘ angestrebt.

The collection showcases new research in the field of cultural and historical narratology. Starting from the premise of the ‘semantisation of narrative forms'(A. Nünning), it explores the cultural situatedness and historical transformations of narrative, with contributors developing new perspectives on key concepts of cultural and historical narratology, such as unreliable narration and multiperspectivity. The volume introduces original approaches to the study of narrative in culture, highlighting its pivotal role for attention, memory, and resilience studies, and for the imagination of crises, the Anthropocene, and the Post-Apocalypse. Addressing both fictional and non-fictional narratives, individual essays analyze the narrative-making and unmaking of Europe, Brexit, and the Postcolonial. Finally, the collection features new research on narrative in media culture, looking at the narrative logic of graphic novels, picture books, and newsmedia.

Narrative Research, once the domain of structuralist literary theory, has over the last 15 years developed into an international and interdisciplinary field. It is now commonly agreed that storytelling functions as a fundamental cognitive tool for sense-making and meaning production, and that human beings structure and communicate lived experience through oral, written and visual stories. Entitled Narratology in the Age of Cross-Disciplinary Narrative Research, this volume collects fifteen essays which look at narrative and narrativity from various perspectives, including literary studies and hermeneutics, cognitive theory and creativity research, metaphor studies, film theory and intermediality, as well as memory studies, musicology, theology and psychology. The topics touch on a wide range of issues, such as the current state of narratology and its potential for development, narrativity in visual and auditive art forms, the cultural functions of narrative, and the role of narrative concepts across the disciplines. The volume introduces interested newcomers to the ongoing debate, reflecting the diversity of research questions and methodological approaches involved. It takes a critical, yet cautiously optimistic stance with regard to the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration between narrative researchers, and invites experienced readers from any discipline interested in narrative to join this important debate, which promotes the exchange of ideas, concepts and methods between the humanities and the social sciences.