Room Pinni B4113 or Zoom (Link). (Meeting ID: 668 4700 7494 Passcode: 045076)
Narrative Space: World-building across media
Imaginary worlds often extend across multiple media, each offering a variety of expressive possibilities while contributing to the impression of a larger interconnected world. Such transmedia practices are not just a contemporary phenomenon, although franchises such as Warcraft have greatly expanded their scale and visibility. These franchises provide an opportunity to examine world-building across media. However, their scale also poses analytical challenges. This presentation introduces a research project that approaches this challenge through a close analysis of a limited set of texts from the Warcraft franchise connected by the same diegetic location.
Focusing on Silvermoon City in the Warcraft universe, the analysis compares its actualization in Delilah S. Dawson’s short story “A Whisper of Warning” and in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. The presentation outlines this comparative approach and considers how prose and games can produce distinct actualizations of the same world, how to establish connections between those representations, and how world-building terminology can account for this.
This presentation is connected to a doctoral research project funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation for 2026–2028.
This talk is part of Research Centre Narrare’s Narrative Studies Seminar, which is open to all interested participants. The aim of the seminar is to allow for a multi- and interdisciplinary discussion on data, methods, theories, and the state of narrative research. Sessions consist of introductory presentations by researchers from different career stages and different fields studying narratives at Tampere University (up to 20 min), and general discussion.
Narrative Studies Seminar – Autumn 2026 Programme
15.9. Jussi Lahtinen: Finnish Working-Class Literature and Post-War National Narratives (1945–2025)
Room: Pinni B4113
29.9. Samuli Björninen: Factual narrative: its history, genres and uses
Room: Pinni B4113
6.10. Niki Iisakkila: Narrative Space: World-Building Across Media
Room: Pinni B4113
27.10. Aletta Kemppainen: Moderni avioliittojuoni Kinsellan ja Kajannon chick lit -teoksissa The Burnout (2023) ja Mittoja ja tilaustöitä (2019)
Tila: Pinni B3117
10.11. Noora Raiskio: The narrative means, styles, and subject matters in Finnish graphic medicine zines
Room: Pinni B3117
24.11. Olga Andreevskikh: Post-2022 queer Russophone media spaces: A shattered past, an uncertain future
Room: Pinni B3117
1.12. Helena Mäntyniemi: From Captivity to Consent: Gothic Lineages in Harry Potter Fanfiction Dark Romance Stories
Room: Pinni B3117
8.12. Matias Nurminen & Juha Raipola: Journalismin horjuvat merkitykset: piittaamattomat tulkinnat ja tiedon ehtojen murros
Tila: Pinni B3117
Updates and further information will be published on Narrare’s webpage