On May 18, 2022, Brian Richardson, professor of the University of Maryland and former president of the International Society for Narrative Studies (ISSN), was invited by the School of Foreign Languages of Shanghai Jiao Tong University to deliver an online lecture entitled "Between Probability and Improbability: The Strange Nature of Multiversion Narrative". This lecture was moderated by Professor Shang Biwu, School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The lecture was organized around three parts. Professor Richardson first introduced the concepts of "probability and improbability", the discussion of which could be traced back to Aristotle and was also an important issue in literary theory and practice in recent years. Therefore, the poetics of probability and improbability need to be constructed and improved. Then he moved on to the topic of Impossible Worlds, pointing out that previous theories of Possible Worlds were challenged by the writing of the Impossible in modern and contemporary fiction. Writing about impossible worlds was anti-imitative, which, as Lubomir Doležel put it, was "a going-backwards in the fiction construction" because it "cancels the whole project of world construction." Professor Richardson believed that narrative theory should cover both imitative narrative and anti-imitative narrative, and elaborated on the literary phenomenon of improbability and contradiction in today's novel writing. Thus, he introduced the discussion of multi-version narrative. Professor Richardson defined a multi-version narrative as "a work of fiction in which many key scenes, events and settings are recurring and varied without the knowledge of the characters". Through the analysis of Tom Tykwer's Lola Rennt, Alain Robbe-Grillet's La Jalousie, and Malcolm Bradbury's novels, he explained the different states and narrative modes of multi-version narrative. Professor Richardson emphasized that audience's attention shifted from the characters to the creator in the multi-version narrative, which emphasized the adventure between the probability and the improbability of the story itself rather than the adventure of the characters in the story. This kind of narrative works deviated from realistic poetics and moved openly towards anti-imitative poetics, which deserved more attention.

During the question-and-answer session, the teachers and students of the School of Foreign Languages had a heated discussion with professor Richardson on the juxtaposition of multi-version narrative, and the different cognitive features of the characters, authors and readers. Professor Shang Biwu summed up the lecture and expressed his sincere thanks to Professor Richardson. The lecture ended successfully.