Call for Papers:

The Palgrave Handbook of Virtual Reality Literature (Re-CFP)
Palgrave Macmillan
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/01/06/the-palgrave-handbook-of-virtual-reality-literature-re-cfp

Editors: Anik Sarkar and Ratul Nandi

Note: This is a call for additional essays.

Deadline for submissions of abstracts: February 10, 2026

About the book:

A discernible surge in scholarship on virtual reality appears imminent on a global scale. Even as the materialization of long-imagined science-fictional imaginaries is undeniably compelling, it is an equally crucial task to approach these transformations critically, probing the implications and consequences of our constructed realities as they enter new experiential paradigms. Virtual Reality may encode, enhance, and reconstruct real-life experiences, unveiling new avenues for exploration, while simultaneously raising concerns about privacy, manipulation, and the obscuring of boundaries between reality and simulation. Ken Pimentel and Kevin Teixeira’s ideation of Virtual Reality is that the phenomenon refers to an immersive, interactive experience generated by computers. Marie-Laure Ryan contends that, while the phrase “computer-generated” refers to the digital nature of the information, the terms “immersive” and “interactive” describe the specific characteristics that make the computer-mediated experience analogous to reality. For Ryan, to perceive a universe as real, one must feel encircled by it, interact with it physically, and possess the ability to alter its aspects. Accordingly, for Jonathan Steuer, the combination of immersion and interactivity creates a phenomenon known as telepresence, in which a virtual world instils a sensation of presence similar to reality. As a result, telepresence reflects “presence” in the same way that virtual reality does. The essence of virtual reality resides within a digital architecture that possesses an ability to facilitate a seamless phenomenological transition, establishing the simulated world as a site of lived, embodied experience. Ryan, thereby, undertakes a comparative analysis that aims to foster a critical examination of interactivity within literary theory by exploring the immersive aspects of both literature and VR technology, seeking to revitalize the experience of immersion and deepen our understanding of the expressive capacities inherent in the supporting medium of literature. She proposes the transfer of “immersion and interactivity from the technological to the literary domain,” developing them into the cornerstones of a “phenomenology of reading, or, more broadly, of experiencing art.” In this manner, she explores both classical literary works and emerging genres enabled by the digital advancements of the last twenty years, including hypertext, contemporary electronic literature, video games, interactive dramas, and electronic installations. Likewise, many facets of VR have started to feature in contemporary literary texts. Novels such as Snow Crash, Ready Player One, The Three-Body Problem, and Neuromancer have meticulously examined the convergence and interconnectivity of VR with tangible reality, envisioning cyberpunk futures that extrapolate potential world-orders imbued with diverse “possibilities.”

Virtual Reality Literature, such as Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, provides prefigurative reflections on biopolitical issues pertaining to society. In these immersive narratives, virtual worlds such as the OASIS and the Metaverse serve as parallels to the physical world, revealing and intentionally exaggerating economic inequities, corporate control, and the campaign for human autonomy. These novels’ treatment of these tropes prompts critical reconsiderations of the ethical and political implications of VR technology, pushing readers to evaluate the consequences of unfettered technological growth on the environment, mass surveillance, social justice, and personal liberty. In this volume, we are interested in exploring how such texts have responded to the gamification and virtualization of reality. Similarly, the project seeks an inquisition into how the different facets of VR literature have represented the changing dynamics of the socio-political order. Do literary texts that do not directly engage with VR also provoke us on similar fronts? Is it conceivable for us to identify, analyze, and conceptualize an emergent sub-genre of narratives termed “VR Literature”? How does VR transform reading from a textual act into an embodied, spatial, and sensory experience? Can VR narratives sustain literary complexity without traditional textual forms? How does reader interactivity reformulate typical notions of authorship and closure? How do VR narratives engage empathy, emotional realism, or ethical awareness differently from print literature or film? What theoretical, pedagogical, or methodological shifts must literary studies undergo to accommodate futuristic VR narratives as literature? Finally, how are the developments in hypertext, contemporary electronic literature, video games, interactive dramas, electronic installations, and, most significantly, virtual reality narratives transforming the very act of reading and its experiential dimensions?

REFERENCES:

Pimentel, Ken, and Kevin Teixeira. 1993. Virtual Reality: Through the New Looking Glass. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Ryan, Marie-Laure. 1999. “Immersion vs. Interactivity: Virtual Reality and Literary Theory.” SubStance 28 (2): 110–37.

Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2001. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

TOPICS:

We are looking for essays that may address these subtopics:

• Narration and Immersion
• Virtual Worlds in Literary Texts
• Theorizing Literature as Virtual Reality
• VR and the futures of Storytelling
• Digital Literature and VR
• VR Literature and Multimodality
• VR Literature and Critical Theory
• VR Literature and Video games
• VR, Graphic Novels, and Comics
• VR and Science Fiction

SUBMISSIONS:

Please submit an abstract of 250–300 words (with a 150-word bio) to the editors at vrliterature24@gmail.com.

Please submit abstracts at your earliest convenience, but no later than February 10, 2026. Following the acceptance of abstracts, full essays of 5,000 words will be due by the end of August 2026.