James Phelan

Bio: James Phelan is an academic researcher from Ohio State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Narrative & Rhetorical question. The author has an hindex of 19, co-authored 100 publications receiving 1629 citations. Previous affiliations of James Phelan include University of York.

A companion to narrative theory

Abstract: • Comprises 35 original essays written by leading figures in the field • Includes contributions from pioneers in the field such as Wayne C. Booth, Seymour Chatman, J. Hillis Miller and Gerald Prince • Represents all the major critical approaches to narrative and investigates and debates the relations between them • Considers narratives in different disciplines, such as law and medicine • Features analyses of a variety of media, including film, music, and painting • Designed to be of interest to specialists, yet accessible to readers with little prior knowledge of the field

Narrative as rhetoric: technique, audiences, ethics, ideology

Abstract: theorizing and a stream-of-consciousness account of reading and re­ sponding to the character of Beloved. Like the other essays in this book, this one is concerned with tapping into the intuitive experience of reading and articulat­ ing its bases in order to express cognitively what we experience intuitively. In the fourth section, in particular, I attempt to stay very close to that intuitive ex­ perience even as I inevitably move to more abstract cognition. 77ie motivation for this experimentation with form arises from the specific hypothesis I want to advance: some textual recalcitrance cannot be fully ex­ plained, even though it functions very productively in our reading; the focus on Beloved tries to get at an instance of that recalcitrance, while the analysis of the narrative's ending seeks to explain the character's productive functioning. In de­ veloping the case, I also reflect on the powers and limits of interpretation's desire

Estranging Unreliability, Bonding Unreliability, and the Ethics of Lolita

Abstract: Can we really be surprised that readers have overlooked Nabokov’s ironies in Lolita, when Humbert Humbert is given full and unlimited control over the rhetorical resources? . . . One of the delights of this delightful, profound book is that of watching Humbert almost make a case for himself. But Nabokov has insured that many, perhaps most, of his readers will be unsuccessful, in that they will identify Humbert with the author more than Nabokov intends. (391) Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, Chapter 13

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

Abstract: A sweeping examination of the core issues of sexual politics, bell hook's new book Feminist Theory: from margin to center argues that the contemporary feminist movement must establish a new direction for the 1980s. Continuing the debates surrounding her controversial first book, Ain't I A Woman, bell hooks suggests that feminists have not succeeded in creating a mass movem A sweeping examination of the core issues of sexual politics, bell hook's new book Feminist Theory: from margin to center argues that the contemporary feminist movement must establish a new direction for the 1980s. Continuing the debates surrounding her controversial first book, Ain't I A Woman, bell hooks suggests that feminists have not succeeded in creating a mass movement against sexist oppression because the very foundation of women's liberation has, until now, not accounted for the complexity and diversity of female experience.