The unusual marriage of Romantic ballet and artificial intelligence is an intriguing idea that led a team of interdisciplinary researchers to design iGiselle, a video game prototype. Scholars in the fields of literature, physical education, music, design, and computer science collaborated to revise the tragic narrative of the nineteenth-century ballet Giselle, allowing players to empower the heroine for possible ”feminine endings.” The eight interrelated chapters chronicle the origin, development, and fruition of the project. Dancers, gamers, and computer specialists will all find something original that will stimulate their respective interests.

Contributors: Vadim Bulitko, Wayne DeFehr, Christina Gier, Pirkko Markula, Mark Morris, Sergio Poo Hernandez, Emilie St. Hilaire, Nora Foster Stovel, Laura Sydora

Nora Foster Stovel is a Professor Emerita in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. She has published on Jane Austen, D.H. Lawrence, Margaret Drabble, Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, and Margaret Laurence. University of Alberta Press published her critical editions of Margaret Laurence’s Heart of a Stranger and Long Drums and Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists and three edited collections: Jane Austen Sings the Blues, Jane Austen & Company, and The Creation of iGiselle: Classical Ballet Meets Contemporary Video Games. She lives in Edmonton.

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# 4 on Edmonton Non-Fiction Bestsellers list, March 10, 2019