Building Imaginary Worlds
The Theory and History of Subcreation
For scholars, writers, designers, and readers fascinated by world-building
Building Imaginary Worlds
The Theory and History of Subcreation
Building Imaginary Worlds explores how worlds are made, expanded, experienced, and studied across literature, comics, film, radio, television, board games, video games, and digital media.
By Mark J. P. Wolf, professor, media scholar, and author of foundational work in game and world studies
Why this book matters
beyond storytelling
Examines world building as a creative act in its own right--designing coherent, enduring, imagined realities.
transmedial & transauthorial
Explores how worlds expand across media, creators, and communities over time.
audience & subcreation
How audiences participate, extend and transform worlds, becoming co-creators of meaning and mythology.
history & reference
A comprehensive guide to the history and timeline of more than 1400 imaginary worlds.
"Building Imaginary Worlds is a stunning work of scholarship, encyclopedic in its scope, well-informed in its theory, and totally infectious in its enthusiasm for its topic. It will go down as the Bible of imaginary worlds." –Marie-Laure Ryan, author of Avatars of Story
"Wolf shifts our focus from particular stories and media to the fantastical contexts we have created. Imaginary worlds express our deepest hopes, but we don't merely imagine these places. We try to live there, and in this choice lies tremendous social disruption." –Edward Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds
Subcreation Studies
Mark J.P. Wolf’s study of imaginary worlds theorizes world-building within and across media, including literature, comics, film, radio, television, board games, video games, the Internet, and more. Building Imaginary Worlds departs from prior approaches to imaginary worlds that focused mainly on narrative, medium, or genre, and instead considers imaginary worlds as dynamic entities in and of themselves. Wolf argues that imaginary worlds—which are often transnarrative, transmedial, and transauthorial in nature—are compelling objects of inquiry for Media Studies.
Building Imaginary Worlds also provides the scholar of imaginary worlds with a glossary of terms and a detailed timeline that spans three millennia and more than 1,400 imaginary worlds, listing their names, creators, and the works in which they first appeared.
Chapters touch on:
- a theoretical analysis of how world-building extends beyond storytelling, the engagement of the audience, and the way worlds are conceptualized and experienced
- a theoretical analysis of how world-building extends beyond storytelling, the engagement of the audience, and the way worlds are conceptualized and experienced
- a theoretical analysis of how world-building extends beyond storytelling, the engagement of the audience, and the way worlds are conceptualized and experienced
- a theoretical analysis of how world-building extends beyond storytelling, the engagement of the audience, and the way worlds are conceptualized and experienced
- an analysis of the transauthorial nature of imaginary worlds, the resulting concentric circles of authorship, and related topics of canonicity, participatory worlds, and subcreation’s relationship with Divine Creation.
about the author
mark j. p. wolf
Dr. Mark J. P. Wolf is a Distinguished Professor in the Digital Media & Design Department at Concordia University Wisconsin. He has a B. A. (1990) in Film Production and an M. A. (1992) and Ph. D. (1995) in Critical Studies from the School of Cinema/Television (now renamed the School of Cinematic Arts) at the University of Southern California.
imagine worlds.
understand them.
create the future.
The definitive study of imaginary worlds across media, history, and culture.