This volume explores the aesthetic and political dimensions of cultural worldmaking, i.e. the cultural contexts and functions of processes of symbolization, and the power relations this implicates. Focussing on the aesthetic practices and politics of worldmaking, the contributions illustrate that an alliance between theories of symbol systems and the study of literature, culture and media is an important force in literary and cultural studies. Such an alliance opens up productive new possibilities for the analysis of both the relation between aesthetic ways of worldmaking and their cultural contexts, and the epistemological, historical, and cultural dimensions of symbol systems. The essays showcase innovative discussions of the diverse media that are employed to create the worlds that we regard as reality and examine how ways of worldmaking respond to conflicting interests, needs and norms. Moreover, the contributions to the volume shed new light on the diachronic development of cultural ways of worldmaking and in so doing trace their changing functions.