Cookie Consent by FreePrivacyPolicy.com
JAAAS logo

Special Issue Introduction

Vol. 6 No. 2 (2025): Versions of America: Speculative Pasts, Presents, Futures

Introduction: Versions, Narratives, and American Studies

Submitted
June 6, 2025
Published
2025-06-18

Abstract

This introduction lays out the concept of versioning as a cultural practice and highlights key premises and potentials of the analysis of such practices in the context of American studies. Drawing from narrative theory and theories of speculation, it theorizes the notion of a version as a copy with a difference. Moreover, the introduction identifies three forms of versioning in relation to the field of American studies: revisionist versioning, speculation-focused versioning, and code-oriented versioning.

References

  1. Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. John Hopkins UP, 1997.
  2. Alber, Jan. "Introduction: The Ideological Ramifications of Narrative Strategies." Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, vol. 9, no. 1–2, 2017, pp. 3–25.
  3. Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. 6th edition. Routledge, 2023.
  4. Bode, Christoph, and Rainer Dietrich, editors. Future Narratives: Theory, Poetics, and Media-Historical Moment. De Gruyter, 2013.
  5. Bordwell, David. Poetics of Cinema. Routledge, 2007.
  6. Branigan, Edward. "Nearly True: Forking Plots, Forking Interpretations: A Response to David Bordwell's 'Film Futures.'" SubStance, vol. 31, no. 1, 2002, pp. 105–14, https://doi.org/10.2307/3685811.
  7. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. One Planet, Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax. Brandeis UP, 2023.
  8. Currie, Mark. About Time: Narrative, Fiction and the Philosophy of Time. Edinburgh UP, 2006.
  9. Dahlström, Mats. "Digital Incunable: Versionality and Versatility in Digital Scholarly Editions." Electronic Publishing in the Third Millenium: Proceedings of an ICCC/IFIP Conference. ELPUB, 2000, https://elpub.architexturez.net/system/files/pdf/0024.content.07193_0.pdf.
  10. Eve, Martin Paul. "Impossible Chess, Close Reading, and Inattention as Disability in Percival Everett's Telephone." Orbit: A Journal of American Literature, vol. 11, no. 1, 2023, pp. 1–25, https://doi.org/10.16995/orbit.9845.
  11. Everett, Percival. Telephone. Graywolf, 2020.
  12. Fluck, Winfried, and Thomas Claviez. "Introduction." Theories of American Culture – Theories of American Studies, edited by Winfried Fluck and Thomas Claviez, Narr, 2003, pp. ix–xii.
  13. Frangipane, Nicholas. Multiple Narratives, Versions and Truth in the Contemporary Novel. Palgrave, 2019.
  14. Frangipane, Nicholas. "Two Sides to the Story: Multiple Versions and Post-Postmodernist Epistemology." Poetics Today, vol. 38, no. 3, 2017, pp. 569–87, https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-4166710.
  15. Gates, Henry Louis. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. Oxford UP, 1988.
  16. Herman, David. "Narrative Ways of Worldmaking." Narratology in the Age of Cross-disciplinary Narrative Research, edited by Sandra Heinen and Roy Sommer, De Gruyter, 2009, pp. 71–87, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110222432.71.
  17. Holland, Mary K. The Moral Worlds of Contemporary Realism. Bloomsbury, 2020.
  18. Huber, Irmtraud. Literature after Postmodernism: Reconstructive Fantasies. Palgrave, 2014.
  19. Kim, Sue J. "Introduction: Decolonizing Narrative Theory." Journal of Narrative Theory, vol. 42, no. 3, 2012, pp. 233–47. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24484772.
  20. Maus, Derek C. Jesting in Earnest: Percival Everett and Menippean Satire. U of South Carolina P, 2019.
  21. Paul, Heike. The Myths that Made America: An Introduction to American Studies. Transcript, 2014.
  22. Prince, Gerald. Narrative as Theme: Studies in French Fiction. U of Nebraska P, 1992.
  23. Richardson, Brian. A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-First Century: Theorizing Unruly Narratives. Ohio State UP, 2019.
  24. Richardson, Brian. Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction. Ohio State UP, 2006.
  25. Rogers, Gayle. Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI. Columbia UP, 2021.
  26. Ryan, Marie-Laure. A New Anatomy of Storyworlds: What is, What if, as If. Ohio State UP, 2022.
  27. Shriver, Lionel. The Post-Birthday World. HarperCollins, 2007.
  28. Slaughter, Joseph R. Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law. Fordham UP, 2007.
  29. Stewart, Anthony. "About Percival Everett." Ploughshares, vol. 40, no. 2–3, 2014, pp. 188–93. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24624772.
  30. Strehle, Susan. Fictions in the Quantum Universe. U of North Carolina P, 2000.
  31. Tattersall, Ian. "How We Came to Be Human." Scientific American, vol. 285, no. 6, 2001, pp. 66-73. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26059460.
  32. Taylor, Jesse Oak. "The Novel after Nature, Nature after the Novel: Richard Jefferies's Anthropocene Romance." Studies in the Novel, vol. 50, no. 1, 2018, pp. 108–33. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48559259.
  33. Uncertain Commons. Speculate This! Duke UP, 2013.
  34. "Version, N." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, Sept 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5847163194.
  35. Wachtel, Eleanor. "An Interview with Percival Everett." Brick, A Literary Journal, 27 Feb. 2022, https://brickmag.com/an-interview-with-percival-everett/.

Similar Articles

11-20 of 104

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.