1st Edition
Master-Narrative Transitions from the Vikings to Artificial Intelligence How Fiction Helps Communities Adapt to a Changing World
By Mads Larsen
Copyright 2026
310 Pages
8 B/W Illustrations
by
Routledge
310 Pages
8 B/W Illustrations
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Master-Narrative Transitions from the Vikings to Artificial Intelligence: How Fiction Helps Communities Adapt to a Changing World examines how societies survive and transform when their foundational stories begin to collapse. By tracing a millennium of cultural evolution in the Nordic region, it explores the mechanisms through which communities move from one master-narrative to another.... Read more
Chapter 1. Bridging the Narrative Abyss Chapter 2. The Nordic Master-Narrative Chapter 3. Christianity: From Kinship Societies to Feudalism Chapter 4. The Black Death: Acceleration toward Humanism Chapter 5. The Reformation: From Theism to Religious Humanism Chapter 6. The Pastoral Enlightenment: A Nordic Secular Humanism Chapter 7. Feminism: Writing Women into the Master-Narrative Chapter 8. Modernity: A Plea from the Urban Poor Chapter 9. Secular Lutheranism: Narrative Continuity Informs Poverty Relief Chapter 10. Humanism: A Nordic Negotiation between Secular Creeds Chapter 11. Social Democracy: Adapting through the Gales of Modernity Chapter 12. Postmodernism: Countering the Neoliberal Threat Chapter 13. Posthumanism: Algorithmic Universality as Nordic Dataism Chapter 14. Overcoming the Gloom of a Collapsing Story
Biography
Mads Larsen is a literary scholar who uses evolutionary perspectives to study cultural change. After earning a PhD and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, he became a Postdoc and Researcher at the University of Oslo. Larsen is currently affiliated with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His first research monograph was Stories of Love from Vikings to Tinder: The Evolution of Modern Mating Ideologies, Dating Dysfunction, and Demographic Collapse (Routledge, 2025). Larsen has co-authored a book on evolutionary positive psychology and published over 40 articles. He serves on the editorial board of Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences.
