This book calls for an investigation of the borderlands of narrativity the complex and culturally productive area where the symbolic form of narrative meets other symbolic logics, such as data(base), play, spectacle, or ritual. It opens up a conversation about the beyond of narrative, about the myriad constellations in which narrativity interlaces with, rubs against, or morphs into the principles of other forms. To conceptualize these borderlands, the book introduces the notion of 'narrative liminality,' which the 16 articles utilize to engage literature, popular culture, digital technology, historical artifacts, and other kinds of texts from a time span of close to 200 years.

Sebastian M. Herrmann is an American studies scholar at Leipzig University, Germany. His work is focused on the poetics of ('post-truth') politics, on popular culture, and on symbolic forms. His most recent monograph, currently forthcoming, focuses on the interdependence of data and literature in ninetheenth-century US culture. Katja Kanzler is a professor of American literature at Universität Leipzig, Germany. Her work is focused on the intersectionalities of 'race,' class, and gender in US-American literature and popular culture, on genres of popular culture past and present, and on the dynamics of narrativity and textuality in different genres and media. Stefan Schubert researches and teaches at the Institute for American Studies at Universität Leipzig, Germany. His main interests include US popular culture, (post-)postmodernism, cultural politics, 19th-century literature, and questions of textuality and narrativity. His postdoctoral research project focuses on the emergence of privilege in late nineteenth-century US literature and culture.