Narratives, narratives, narratives everywhere. They shape our daily lives, underpin informational and artistic communication, and enrich research methods in the sciences, particularly the social sciences.

Contemporary narrative studies, challenging the primacy of literary narratives and revising the (dominant in the 20th century) structural readings of fiction, open a new agenda for narratives, marked by polysemy and the synergy of multiple channels of their construction and dissemination, thus rendering the analytical practice of narratives a multidisciplinary imperative.

The present volume, the product of a multifaceted narratology, is designed to cover three fundamental functions of narrative: aesthetic enjoyment, public and online communication, and its use in social sciences, serving both as raw material and analytical tool at the same time.

Correspondingly, the pages of the volume feature contributions from esteemed researchers in narrative studies, which are divided into four sections: fiction, audiovisual arts, communication, and social sciences. If this rich harvest succeeds in establishing narrative as the axis of an interdisciplinary discussion on the representations of invaluable stories, both small and large, and on new ways of reading them, the volume has achieved its goal.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Narratology: From classical to post-classical versions
• Narrative as creative communication: folkloristic theory of genres, inclusion and differentiation criteria
• Contemporary travel narratives: Aesthetic and cultural stakes
• Consciousness and literary narratives
• Narrative in fictional cinema
• Narrative theory and documentary film creation methodology
• Comics as narratives
• Television news as narrative
• News, narrative, and the social construction of crisis
• Short narratives: mapping a narrative analysis for the 21st century
• Short stories of mourning and memory on the internet
• Narrative and non-narrative discourse in blog texts and Twitter
• Intermedial narratives on digital education and marketing platforms
• Narrative persuasion in advertising
• Narratives and hybrid identities of immigrant students in Greece
• The study of narrative discourse in aphasia
• Narrative and history. Exploring a complex relationship
• Law, trial, and narrative: facets of a multifaceted relationship
• Index of terms