Narrative Theory

“Sharing in Their Spiritual Blessings? The Story of Israel in Galatians and Romans,” in Bruce W. Longenecker (ed.), Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 58-84

by Bruce Longenecker

“The Narrative Approach to Paul: An Early Retrospective,” Currents in Biblical Research 1 (2002): 88-111. Reprinted in Paul Foster, ed., New Testament Studies: Benchmarks in Religious Studies (London: Sage Publications, 2010).

by Bruce Longenecker

An interest in 'narrative' has progressively been incorporated into recent scholarship on Paul and his letters. In... more An interest in 'narrative' has progressively been incorporated into recent scholarship on Paul and his letters. In this enterprise, scholars interest themselves not only in the 'surface level' of a Pauline letter but also in what lies 'beneath the surface'—imagining Paul's letters to be both animated and constrained by a narrative theology that comes to expression in Paul's theological discourse. Interest in the narrative dimension of Paul's thought has arisen in relation to several contributing influences within the theologi cal disciplines—influences both within and beyond the discipline of Pauline studies itself. This article outlines some ways in which 'narrative' is becom ing a key tool in studies of Paul's theology and letters, and suggests four factors behind the rise in this interesting enterprise.

Post-Narrative: An Appeal

by Angela Woods

Narrative Inquiry (2011) Volume 21(2) Pages 399-406

As the narrative turn enters its fourth decade, the task of identifying the limits of narrative and of exploring... more As the narrative turn enters its fourth decade, the task of identifying the limits of narrative and of exploring alternative approaches to interpreting the self and social world is growing in urgency. This article calls for scholars in the medical humanities to undertake this project through critically (re)engaging the work of Galen Strawson, Paul Atkinson and Crispin Sartwell.

The Limits of Narrative: Provocations for the Medical Humanities

by Angela Woods

Medical Humanities Journal (2011) Volume 37 Pages 73-78

This paper aims to (re)ignite debate about the role of narrative in the medical humanities. It begins with a critical... more This paper aims to (re)ignite debate about the role of narrative in the medical humanities. It begins with a critical review of the ways in which narrative has been mobilised by humanities and social science scholars to understand the experience of health and illness. I highlight seven dangers or blind spots in the dominant medical humanities approach to narrative, including the frequently unexamined assumption that all human beings are ‘naturally narrative’. I then explore this assumption further through an analysis of philosopher Galen Strawson's influential article ‘Against Narrativity’. Strawson rejects the descriptive claim that “human beings typically see or live or experience their lives as a narrative” and the normative claim that “a richly Narrative outlook is essential to a well-lived life, to true or full personhood”. His work has been taken up across a range of disciplines, but its implications in the context of health and illness have not yet been sufficiently discussed. This article argues that ‘Against Narrativity’ can and should stimulate robust debate within the medical humanities regarding the limits of narrative, and concludes by discussing a range of possibilities for venturing ‘beyond narrative’.

Re-framing education as a thirdspace: neonarratives of pedagogy, power and transformation

by Janice Jones

Jones, Janice Kathleen (2011) Re-framing education as a thirdspace: neonarratives of pedagogy, power and transformation. [Thesis (_PhD/Research)]

Educational practices are ideologically informed, socially framed, and culturally contested. Historically, these... more Educational practices are ideologically informed, socially framed, and culturally contested. Historically, these forces have impacted upon how far and how swiftly education can respond to national and global challenges. In the 21st century the tension between Platonic and Aristotlean philosophies of education, and how those dissonant epistemologies are embodied in curriculum and pedagogy continues to inform contemporary debate about the purposes and practices of formal education. Platonic beliefs in education as a means of strengthening the state are consistent with Firstspace ideologies of testing and reporting, benchmarking and competitive practice. This is in contrast with Secondspace ideologies that emphasise education for the individual, and for cooperative communities.

This study is situated in the troubling and troubled borderland or Thirdspace between two ideologies. They are Firstspace ideologies and practices of education that seek to create a skilled but malleable workforce for a competitive economy, and Secondspace ideologies that promote individual learner autonomy for lifelong and life-wide learning and global citizenship. Transformative or critical pedagogies are described by both ideologies as pivotal: for governments they are presented as strategic to the achievement of a competitive edge in a global economy, and for postcolonial theorists they are the means for subverting epistemologies of difference and inequities of power.

The organising argument of this study, that critical pedagogy has the capacity to democratise and subvert dominant and colonising ideas and practices of education, is balanced by two supporting arguments. They are, first, that reflective, critical and transformative pedagogy belongs to a Thirdspace epistemology, whose purpose is to trouble, rather than to serve beliefs and practices of education that re-inscribe the dominant culture. Second, that the dominant culture employs bureaucratic and hegemonic force to subvert the potential for change that results from critical and transformative praxis. Hence, the transformative educator seeks to effect change in fields that are inherently resistant to change.

A bricolage of narratives gathered over a three-year period informs this study of transformative praxis in the context of education. The data are constituted from notes, diaries, children‘s and pre-service teachers‘ writings and feedback, and films and interviews gathered by the researcher and participants. Narratives from an alternative play-based community primary school, undergraduate pre-service primary educators and self-as-teacher-educator constitute ‗tales from the field‘, locating participants in the study as post-colonial voices.

The process of writing upon writing reveals and re-presents the views of participants as subtexts from the field. The findings of the study are presented as neonarratives, indicating shared perceptions between the school community, pre-service teachers and the researcher of dissonances between contemporary theories of education and constraints impacting upon transformative pedagogy in practice. These findings have implications for the researcher‘s personal and professional practices of pedagogy as an educator of pre-service teachers as well as more broadly for government policy, the implementation of change within established systems; and for parents seeking a transformative education for their children.

A narrative community

by Chaim Noy

Narratives and Counter-Narratives: Contesting a Tourist Site in Jerusalem

by Chaim Noy

In Jacqueline Tivers and Tijana Rakić (eds.), Narratives of Travel and Tourism. Aldershot, VT: Ashgate. Pp. 135-150. (2012)

This chapter examines the ideological role that narratives serve in tourism, arguing that tourism should be construed... more This chapter examines the ideological role that narratives serve in tourism, arguing that tourism should be construed as a highly ideological social sphere where political narratives are constantly at a struggle. The case study concerns a tourist site located in Jerusalem (Israel). The case shows how competing stories told of tourist sites and places are actually ideological narratives that serve effectively as part of larger ideological orders – in this case national ideology. I examine the hegemonic narrative (I borrow the term from Antonio Gramsci’s 1971 famous conceptualization) that is institutionally told of the site, and a counter-narrative that has been recently voiced by a group of artists/social activists. It is only through giving room to the latter narrative, that the hegemonic meanings imbued in the common story are revealed. In this sense we encounter counter-narratives in tourism, which are resistive and subversive stories that interrupt and undermine the industry’s powerful political commitments. Interestingly, from the perspective of tourism research, the counter-narrative voiced by local artists/activists is also produced within the semiotic realm of tourism, and also seeks to shape tourists’ consciousness and political convictions.
Thus narratives of tourism sites emerge as constitutive in terms of the meanings with which they charge the sites, and in terms of promoting hegemonic sets of meanings while reducing and silencing other meanings. Examining these narratives illuminates the awesome worldmaking power of tourism, which builds on the facts that, a. high ideological involvement can be achieved in and through tourism without it being explicitly marked as “ideology,” and b. that the nature of tourist behavior - which concerns embodied practices where travelers not only contemplate places but also consume them in an embodied and committed/mobilized sense.

Narrative Responsibility and Moral Dilemma: A Case Study of a Family’s Decision About a Brain-dead Daughter

by Masahiro Morioka

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, Vol.32, No.2 (April 2011):91-99.

A brain death case is presented and reinterpreted using the narrative approach. In the case, two Japanese parents face... more A brain death case is presented and reinterpreted using the narrative approach. In the case, two Japanese parents face a dilemma about whether to respect their daughter's desire to donate organs even though, for them, it would mean literally killing their daughter. We argue that the ethical dilemma occurred because the parents were confronted with two conflicting narratives to which they felt a “narrative responsibility,” namely, the responsibility that drives us to tell, retell, and coauthor the (often unfinished) narratives of loved ones. We suggest that moral dilemmas arise not only from conflicts between moral justifications but also from conflicts between narratives and human relationships.

’Trees are what everyone needs’: The Lorax, anthropocentrism, and the problem of mimesis

by Hannes Bergthaller

Published in >Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies. Transatlantic Conversations on Ecocriticism.< Eds. Catrin Gersdorf and Sylvia Meyer. Nature, Culture and Literature 3. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. 155-176

Falsifying the Fragments: Narratological Uses of Mockumentary in Husbands and Wives and Sweet and Lowdown

by Derek Royal

Post Script 31.2 (2012): 53-65.

"Narrative Empathy"

by Suzanne Keen

"Strategic Empathizing: Techniques of Bounded, Ambassadorial, and Broadcast Narrative Empathy"

by Suzanne Keen

"Ancient or modern? Bérardier de Bataut's Essai sur le récit (1776)"

by Christof Schöch

Christof Schöch: "Ancient or modern? Bérardier de Bataut's Essai sur le récit (1776)". Romance Studies, 30.1, Jan. 2012, 25-35. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/174581512X13221535571777

When François-Joseph Bérardier de Bataut first published his Essai sur le récit, ou entretiens sur la manière de... more
When François-Joseph Bérardier de Bataut first published his Essai sur le récit, ou entretiens sur la manière de raconter in 1776, the book received enthusiastic reviews and was praised for being an instructive account of the art of storytelling. This fact has not, however, prevented the book from being all but forgotten today. The present contribution proposes an examination of this text, aiming to reflect on the reasons for the Essai sur le récit’s oblivion and to demonstrate the various respects in which this oblivion appears to be unjustified. It does so by showing that while the Essai sur le récit remains strongly influenced by the classicist period, especially in the range of authors quoted and in some of the core values attributed to narrative, it also contains quite a few more innovative aspects, especially in the very definition of narrative given and in the treatment of narrative circumstances. Attention to Bérardier’s text thus promises to contribute to a growing interest in the persistence of the classical heritage during the Age of Enlightenment, at the same time as it proves relevant to our understanding of the poetics of narrative in the French eighteenth century.

"Successes, Victims, and Prodigies: 'Master' and 'Little' Cultural Narratives in the Literacy Narrative Genre"

by Kara Poe Alexander

Alexander, Kara Poe. (2011). Successes, Victims, and Prodigies: “Master” and “Little” Cultural Narratives in the Literacy Narrative Genre. College Composition and Communication, 62(4): 608-633. 

This article examines the “master” and “little” cultural narratives students perform in literacy narratives. Results... more This article examines the “master” and “little” cultural narratives students perform in literacy narratives. Results show that students incorporate the literacy-equals-success master narrative most often, yet they also include in little narratives figures such as the hero, victim, and child prodigy. I consider how these findings can improve instruction on this topic and conclude with pedagogical recommendations. 

Surtout, ne vous endormez jamais dans un bus... Le dialogisme dans la narration quechua méridional

by Bruce Mannheim

In Aurore Monod-Becquelin and Philippe Erikson (eds.), Les rituels du dialogue, Paris: Société d’Ethnologie. 29-78 (with Krista E. Van Vleet, expanded translation of American Anthropologist article)

Darfur is Dying: A Narrative Analysis

by Adam Knowlton

The purpose of this study was to examine the narratives present within the game “Darfur is Dying,” to determine how... more The purpose of this study was to examine the narratives present within the game “Darfur is Dying,” to determine how the narratives in the game compare to Fisher’s standards for effective narratives, and to argue that narrative simulations like “Darfur is Dying” represent a new form of internet advocacy. The study found that by utilizing Fisher’s requirements of probability and fidelity to create a rational narrative, and providing an immersive, educational, and entertaining environment; narrative simulations present an advocacy platform that can be very successful in creating social action within a target demographic.

The dialogics of Southern Quechua narrative

by Bruce Mannheim

Historical Sites of the Present: Deadwood as Cognitive Mapping

by Sean Legassick

When we look for television that ‘cognitively maps’ contemporary capitalism, we are drawn first to present-day... more When we look for television that ‘cognitively maps’ contemporary capitalism, we are drawn first to present-day narratives that extend over contemporary urban landscapes to explore the spatial displacement of flows of cause and effect within late capitalism. David Simon's The Wire, for example, tracks exactly such flows through its portrayal of a contemporary American city in decay. This paper argues that we can also consider recent works of semi-historical television drama as cognitive mappings, where the narrative is temporally displaced and spatially confined. David Milch's Deadwood is one example, a show that charts the transition of Deadwood from illegal and lawless frontier settlement to a company town annexed by the US Dakota territory, figuring a transitional period for the US state and US capital, mapping that era onto our present.

Un aspetto pragmatico del finale narrativo

by Giulio Savelli

Relazione tenuta nel 1991 al "Séminaire de sémiotique textuelle", Centre de Recherches Italiennes, Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, ora in  "Narrativa", 4, Paris, C.R.I.X., 1993, pp. 11-26.

See:

http://www.giuliosavelli.eu/#Teoria See:

http://www.giuliosavelli.eu/#Teoria

Storytelling, History, and Identity in William Pars's Portrait of Three Friends

by Karen Stanworth