Narratology and the Humanities: Towards a Transdisciplinary Future

22 May 2026

Deborah Madsen

Prof. Deborah Madsen, UNIGE

M. Chen Cui, UNIL

Prof. Wan-Lin Li, Peking University

Prof. Eva von Contzen, Universität Freiburg i.B.

In the Humanities, narratology is a distinct research field that naturally intersects with literary studies and linguistics. With the rise of postclassical narratology in recent decades, functional and cognitive linguistics have played an increasingly central role in shaping narratological theories, fostering deeper and more systematic collaboration between literary scholars and linguists. Simultaneously, the emergence of the Digital Humanities, Environmental Humanities, and Medical Humanities has driven innovative transdisciplinary applications of narratology as well, calling for more scholarly attention to the intertwined aesthetic and ethical dimensions of storytelling across diverse socio-historical contexts and purposes. This expansion has also broadened the scope of narratological inquiry, incorporating more heterogeneous and ideologically provocative sources. As a result, narratology has become a more accessible and socially engaged discipline, deeply embedded in everyday cultural life. On the top of that, recent years have seen a surge in scholarly interest in the historical-diachronic dimensions of narratology, which has brought premodern European material arts and literatures into sharper focus within narratological frameworks, while also tracing their postmedieval afterlives. This has fostered greater interconnections between narratological theories and a wider array of semiotic and cultural perspectives, enriching the field through cross-disciplinary dialogue. Against this backdrop, this CUSO event on narratology aims to provide a platform for doctoral candidates specializing in medieval, modern, and contemporary English and American literature – as well as linguists, theorists, and literary comparatists – to share their research on narratological issues in a broad sense. For linguists, this CUSO event offers a unique opportunity to explore how narrative structures operate across different languages (both modern and medieval), genres, and media, particularly through the lens of functional and cognitive approaches. It encourages engagement with literary texts as rich sites of linguistic patterning and semantic complexity, fostering dialogue on how language shapes and is shaped by narrative. Participants will therefore hone their ability to examine how narrative functions intersect with discourse structure, deixis, modality, and point of view, all of which are central to both linguistic and literary analysis. In this sense, this event will provide a setting to test and refine models of textual meaning-making within broader semiotic and communicative contexts. Literary comparatists, meanwhile, will benefit from the transhistorical and transcultural scope of the discussions, gaining insights into how narratological concepts travel across literary traditions and epochs. By bringing together diverse methodological approaches, the event seeks to cultivate a space where participants can refine their theoretical frameworks, discover new comparative tools, and contribute to a more integrated understanding of storytelling as a cross-disciplinary phenomenon. In a further step, this event also aims to reassess the role of narratology in shaping the future of research and teaching in the liberal arts, particularly in an era where transdisciplinary approaches are becoming increasingly essential in the age of anti-colonialism and AI.

UNIGE

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