Cfp for Vol. 6: Immersion and Emergence in the Fantastic
Immersion is a key concept in the fantastic. From the 3D worlds of Avatar to the in-depth lore of The Lord of the Rings, fantastic narratives thrive on the idea of immersing us in worlds so detailed that we feel as if we are really there. Fantastic worlds often come with their own detailed maps, histories, languages, and cultures, creating the illusion of being a real place. Media industries invest heavily in producing technologies of immersion, such as 4D cinema or VR games. Immersion is one of Henry Jenkins’ “Seven Core Principles of Transmedia Storytelling”, while Mark J.P. Wolf distinguishes between physical immersion, as in a theme park ride, and conceptual immersion, in which audiences are mentally absorbed by the imaginary world, often to the extent of crowding out the real world. In psychology, this state has been called “narrative transportation” (Brock and Green 2000) with researchers attempting to create a scale that measures the feeling of immersion and the techniques that help generate this state.
However, immersion is also a problematic metaphor as it assumes the audience desires complete absorption into another state. For Viktor Shklovsky or Bertolt Brecht, immersion was a prelude to estrangement, where distance from the fictional world was essential for aesthetic effect. Reception practices also raise doubts about whether immersion is the desired goal of audiences. Technologies for greater sensual immersion, such as 3D and VR, have not proven as popular as a theory of immersion would suggest. Merja Polvinen has argued that the theory of narrative transportation ignores the “double vision of fiction” (2017), the capacity of audiences to appreciate a storyworld and its aesthetics simultaneously. If appreciation of how Game of Thrones breaks with fantasy genre conventions is an intrinsic aspect of its success, how is this to be reconciled with the idea of pure immersion?
Another complication is when the fantastic enters the real world. Henry Jenkins pairs immersion with “extractability,” the ways in which audiences take aspects of the narrative universe and deploy them in reality, such as activists dressing up as handmaids from The Handmaid’s Tale in order to advocate for reproductive rights. As elements of fantastic worlds bleed into our world, they complicate the metaphor of immersion. Consider the development of quidditch as real-life sport: is this immersion in the world of fantasy or the emergence of the fantastic into the real? The pairing of immersion and emergence suggests another possibility, that true immersion in a fictional world only happens when the fictional world generates emergent properties that are not contained within the text.
Imagining the Impossible invites articles on issues of immersion and emergence in relation to the fantastic. Possible themes include:
- Theoretical approaches to immersion and emergence
- Immersion and estrangement
- Immersive techniques in fantastic storyworlds
- Immersive technologies and their implications for worldbuilding
- Extractability and emergence in the reception of the fantastic
- Fan practices that blend immersion and emergence
- Analysis of specific texts where immersion or emergence are textual features
Length
5000-8000 words, Chicago style (in text), please keep notes to a minimum. Illustrations are welcome, 300 dpi at print size, .jpg. Authors are responsible for all illustration copyrights.
Deadline for Issue 6
A 500-800 word abstract on December 11, 2026. A first draft article by May 1, 2027, to be published Fall 2027. The finished article should include 125-150 word abstract and 5 - 7 keywords. Articles will be double blind peer-reviewed, edited and published online as they are submitted to the journal.
Please send proposals and questions to the editorial team.
Editorial team
Stephen Joyce, Aarhus University, sjoyce@cc.au.dk
Christian Mehrstam, University of Gothenburg, christian.mehrstam@lir.gu.se
Per Israelson, Stockholm University, per.israelson@littvet.su.se
