From Event to Node: How Nodal Structures Impact on Teaching and Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences

While Past Narratives have events as their basic units, Future Narratives characteristically operate with nodes. A node is a situation that allows for more than just one continuation. Therefore, by definition, Past Narratives are uni-linear, while Future Narratives are multi-linear. Thus, by operating with nodes, Future Narratives cannot only talk about the future, but they perform aspects of futurity that seem essential: its openness, its contingency, and the fact that behind each present moment there opens up a space of possibilities that has not yet coagulated into actuality. Since Future Narratives can be found in all genres and media and, what is more, bridge the fiction/non-fiction divide, the impact of Future Narratives and their conceptualization is across the board and of greatest importance not only to media studies and teaching, but also to any kind of communicating about the future.