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Contemporary Perspectives on AI and Narrative

Contemporary Perspectives on AI and Narrative is an interdisciplinary collection of articles by humanities theorists, digital authors, and artists examining how artificial intelligence intersects with storytelling, creativity, and culture in the post-transformer era. The collection is introduced by Scott Rettberg, leader of the Extending Digital Narrative research project from which the collection emerges. The collected essays span electronic literature, digital humanities, literary studies, digital anthropology, media art, game studies, pedagogy, and visual art.

Contemporary Perspectives on AI and Narrative is grounded in the history of electronic literature — computational experimental writing with roots stretching back to the beginnings of the computer — but considers narrative beyond the literary to encompass language, history, folklore, publishing, pedagogy, gaming, painting, and more. Rather than assessing whether human authors outperform machines, the collection focuses on how digital authors and artists are actively engaging, both critically and creatively, with generative AI platforms, and what new critical insights might emerge from those encounters.

The collection aims to establish an alternative to normative literary and sociological analysis by decentering commercial model assessment, foregrounding actual experimental practice, and theorizing the AI ecosystem as it interfaces with authorship and narrative today.

This collection is guest-edited by Scott Rettberg, Professor, Director, Center for Digital Narrative, University of Bergen; David Jhave Johnston, Researcher, Center for Digital Narrative, University of Bergen; Malthe Stavning Erslev, Post-Doc, Aarhus Universitet; Tuuli V. V. Hongisto, Post-Doc, University of Helsinki; Alexandra Saum Pascaul, Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley; Haoyuan Tang, PhD Candidate, University of Bergen; Pedro Cristóvão Q Pinto, Editorial Assistant, University of Bergen.

Image: Scott Rettberg, ‘Filtered stones at Solstrand, under glass’.

Editors: Scott Rettberg (Guest Editor), David Jhave Johnston (Guest Editor), Malthe Stavning Erslev (Guest Editor), Tuuli Vilja Vellamo Hongisto (Guest Editor), Alex Saum-Pascual (Guest Editor), Haoyuan Tang (Guest Editor), Pedro Pinto (Guest Editor)


Contemporary Perspectives on AI and Narrative

Generative Alternatives: GenAI Realism from the Image Provinces in Kristoffer Ørum’s #freedomlibertyandhiphop
Generative Alternatives: GenAI Realism from the Image Provinces in Kristoffer Ørum’s #freedomlibertyandhiphop

Mr Søren Bro Pold

Volume 12 • Issue 1 • 2026

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Special Collection: Contemporary Perspectives on AI and Narrative

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