Storytelling is thought of as one of the oldest forms of entertainment and of interpersonal and intergenerational communication, if not the oldest. With the development of writing in the 4th century BCE, the democratization of reading by the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, and the massive alphabetization of the West during the 19th and 20th centuries, the ancient art of storytelling seemed to have vanished, or at least banished to the politically “harmless” corners of modern society, where the old art and stories are financialized and monopolized by large entertainment companies in the forms of novels, films, and video games.

However, in a slightly different form, known under the notion of “narrative”, the concept of storytelling can be seen to have re-entered the political and societal domain in a new manner, with French philosopher François Lyotard arguing that great overarching stories like those of Marxism and capitalism, but also those of the great world religions, had to make place for smaller stories that are capable of competing with one another (La condition postmoderne, 1979). This type of relativism is seen as highly typical for the postmodern condition. Although there has been some criticism of “postmodernism” as a signifying and collectivizing notion for our contemporary status quo, one can still perceive an academic and popular focus on small, competing and remonstrating stories. This signifies the continuing importance of notions like “narrative” and “storytelling”.

While initially, the notion of storytelling seems to have been reserved for explicit religious contexts (the concept of sacred histories, sacred scripts, and those who have the divine authority to read, tell and explain), the secularization of the Western world did not rob our contemporary macro, meso, and micro narratives from their former religious inspiration. Novels, games, films, and other narrative media continue to present new answers to old questions, and are not infrequently tied up with traditionally religious notions like forgiveness, eternity, life and death, redemption, and the like.

For this Special Issue of Religions, we encourage academics, independent scholars, and PhD students to send in their abstracts on contemporary storytelling. We specifically encourage contributions that focus on one or more concrete narratives—from novels, television, Netflix, games, films, and so forth—as conveyors of new answers to “old” theological and philosophical questions of the human condition. Additionally, more theoretical contributions are welcomed that focus on the concept of “narrative” relative to the religious realm(s).

Papers about a wide variety of topics are welcomed, including, but not limited to:

• Transmedial storytelling;
• Intertextuality;
• Good and evil;
• The possibility for forgiveness in the Internet age;
• Gender;
• Artificial Intelligence;
• Memefication and Internet culture.

For more information or the submission of a proposal, please contact the secretary, Frank Bosman, [email protected].

Dr. Frank G. Bosman
Ms. Margaret Steenbakker
Mr. Raphaël Koers
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• narrativity
• storytelling
• transmediality
• intertextuality
• theology
• religion studies