(Re)Reading Encyclopedic Narratives in the Digital Age

An Introduction

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/1592-4467/13597

Keywords:

Encyclopedic Narratives, Digital Humanities, Algorithmic Narrative, Literary Maximalism, Representation and Totality

Abstract

Introduction to the Special Section (Re)Reading Encyclopedic Narratives in the Digital Age.

Author Biographies

Ali Dehdarirad, Sapienza Università di Roma

Ali Dehdarirad is the author of From Faraway California: Thomas Pynchon’s Aesthetics of Space in the California Trilogy (Sapienza UP, 2023). He currently teaches American Literature and Culture at Sapienza University of Rome, where he obtained his Ph.D. He has published a number of essays on Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, William T. Vollmann, Cormac McCarthy, Paul Auster, Stephen Markley, Vladimir Nabokov, John Steinbeck, Jorge Luis Borges, and John Edward Williams. He is presently editing a special issue of Orbit: A Journal of American Literature, “The Systems Novel in the Twenty-First Century,” and co-editing the volume Fictions of Truth: Literature, Culture, Power after the Postmodern Moment (Sapienza UP).

Giorgio Mariani, Sapienza Università di Roma

Giorgio Mariani recently retired from Sapienza University of Rome, where he is now Honorary Professor of American Literature. He was President of the Melville Society for the year 2018 and he is the author of several books, including Leggere Melville (Carocci, 2013), Waging War on War: Peacefighting in American Literature (U of Illinois Press, 2015), and Melville. Guida a Moby-Dick (Carocci, 2022).

Sascha Pöhlmann, TU Dortmund University

Sascha Pöhlmann is full professor of American Literature and Culture at TU Dortmund University, Germany. He is the author of four monographs and the (co)editor of essay collections on Thomas Pynchon, Mark Z. Danielewski, Percival Everett, foundational places in/of Modernity, electoral cultures, American music, unpopular culture, video games and American Studies, secrecy and transparency in American literature, and flyover fictions. He is the editor of the book series European Studies in North American Literature and Culture at Camden House, a co-editor of the book series Video Games and the Humanities at De Gruyter, and a co-editor of the open access e-journal Orbit: A Journal of American Literature.

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Published

2026-08-31

Issue

Vol. 37 (2026): (Re)Reading Encyclopedic Narratives in the Digital Age

Section

Special Section

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Ali Dehdarirad, Giorgio Mariani, Sascha Pöhlmann

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

RSAJournal will apply a CC BY 4.0 license to all its contributions starting with issue 37 (2026). Previous issues are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND licence.