The series is designed to advance the publication of research pertaining to themes and motifs in literature. The studies cover cross-cultural patterns as well as the entire range of national literatures. They trace the development and use of themes and motifs over extended periods, elucidate the significance of specific themes or motifs for the formation of period styles, and analyze the unique structural function of themes and motifs.

The Author: Berndt Clavier earned his doctoral degree in English at Lund University, Sweden, and he is a former Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Currently, he is Assistant Professor at IMER (International Migration and Ethnic Relations) at Malmö University, Sweden. Clavier has published articles on postmodernism, travel, and transnationalism.

«This book will have a special appeal not only for those interested in John Barth but also for those pursuing postmodernism and metafiction. Berndt Clavier takes up the issue of spatiality and re-examines its centrality for our inherited notions of historicity, temporality, and causality. Through a series of perceptive analyses Clavier demonstrates how John Barth’s focus on these concerns allows us to re-think such fundamentals as representation, the subject-object distinction, and, indeed, human consciousness. The book offers an extremely useful and thought-provoking discussion of some of the key phenomena of postmodern literary fiction, and it is clear that all future studies of Barth will also need to take this important book into account.» (Richard Murphy, University of Sussex; Author of Theorizing the Avant-Garde: Modernism, Expressionism and the Problem of Postmodernity)