Possible Worlds Theory and Counterfactual Historical Fiction

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction: The Genre of Counterfactual Historical Fiction

   • Riyukta Raghunath

   Pages 1-26

3. Possible Worlds Theory: History, Approaches, and Its Relevance to Counterfactual Historical Fiction

   • Riyukta Raghunath

   Pages 27-46

4. New Additions to Possible Worlds Theory: Reader Knowledge Worlds, Ontological Superimposition, and Reciprocal Feedback

   • Riyukta Raghunath

   Pages 47-89

5. Redefining Counterpart Theory and Transworld Identity

   • Riyukta Raghunath

   Pages 91-120

6. The Complex and Mixed Ontology of Fatherland

   • Riyukta Raghunath

   Pages 121-147

7. The Dystopian Counterfactual World and Unreliable Narration in The Sound of His Horn

   • Riyukta Raghunath

   Pages 149-179

8. Multiple Textual Actual Worlds and Contradictions in Making History

   • Riyukta Raghunath

   Pages 181-200

9. Conclusion and Future Research Recommendations

   • Riyukta Raghunath

   Pages 201-219

10. Back Matter

    Pages 221-224

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This book offers a comprehensive Possible Worlds framework with which to analyse counterfactual historical fiction. Counterfactual historical fiction is a literary genre that comprises narratives set in worlds whose histories run contrary to the history of our world, usually speculating on what would have happened had a significant historical event (such as a war) turned out differently. The author develops a systematic critical approach based on a customised model of Possible Worlds Theory supplemented by cognitive concepts that account for the different processes that readers go through when they read counterfactual historical fiction, a genre which relies heavily on pre-existing knowledge about history and culture. This book will be of interest to anyone working with Possible Worlds, including within the fields of philosophy, literary studies, stylistics, cognitive poetics, and narratology. 

• alternative history
• cognitive poetics
• Fatherland
• The Sound of His Horn
• Making History
• reader knowledge worlds
• Transworld Identity
• Narrative Theory
• narratology
• Literary Theory

“Raghunath’s book should be of interest both to scholars of this particular genre and to theoreticians tracing continuities between multiple genres. … Possible Worlds Theory and Counterfactual Historical Fiction is a valuable update of Possible Worlds Theory, one which can potentially lead to useful literary analyses dealing with a much wider spectrum of fictional works – opening up the field of fictional semantics to the challenges of narrating alternative versions of the past and the future.” (Alexander Popov, Fantastika Journal, Vol. 6 (1), February, 2022) “Riyukta Raghunath’s monograph offers a stimulating reappraisal of alternate history fiction. This cognitively informed approach, supported by thorough readings of counterfactual World War II novels, demonstrates the vitality of possible worlds-based theories of narrative.”

- Marco Caracciolo, Ghent University, Belgium

 

• New College of the Humanities, London, UK

  Riyukta Raghunath

Riyukta Raghunath is a Lecturer in the English department at New College of the Humanities, UK. 

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