Showing papers by "Mieke Bal published in 1988"

Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative

Abstract: Since its first publication in English in 1985, Mieke Bal's Narratology has become the international classic and comprehensive introduction to the theory of narrative texts. Narratology is a systematic account of narrative techniques, methods, their transmission, and reception, in which Bal distills years of study of the ways in which we understand both literary and non-literary works. In this third edition, Bal updates the book to include more analysis of film narratives while also sharpening and tightening her language to make it the most readable and student-friendly edition to date. Bal also introduces new sections that treat and clarify several modernist texts that pose narratological challenges. With changes prompted by ten years of feedback from scholars and teachers, Narratology remains the most important contribution to the study of the way narratives work, are formed, and are received.

Death & dissymmetry: the politics of coherence in the Book of Judges

Abstract: Combining literary criticism and feminist analysis, "Death and Dissymmetry" radically reinterprets not only the Book of Judges but also the tradition of its reception and understanding in the West. In Mieke Bal's account, Judges documents the Israelite culture learning to articulate itself in a decisive period of transition. Counter to standard readings of Judges, Bal's interpretation demonstrates that the book has a political and ideological coherence in which the treatment of women plays a pivotal role. Bal concentrates here not on the assassinations and battles that rage through Judges but on the violence in the domestic lives of individual characters, particularly sexual violence directed at women. Her skillful reading reveals that murder, in this text, relates to gender and reflects a social structure that is inherently contradictory. By foregrounding the stories of women and subjecting them to subtle narrative analysis, she is able to expose a set of preoccupations that are essential to the sense of these stories but are not articulated in them. Bal thereby develops a "countercoherence" in conflict with the apparent emphases of Judges the politics, wars, and historiography that have been the constant focus of commentators on the book. "Death and Dissymmetry" makes an important contribution to the development of a feminist method of interpreting ancient texts, with consequences for religious studies, ancient history, literary theory, and gender studies."

Murder and Difference: Gender, Genre, and Scholarship on Sisera's Death

Abstract: Preface The Object Introduction I. DISCIPLINARY CODES 1. The Historical Code The History of the Texts The History of the People Connoted History 2.The Theological Code THe use of the Theological Code Religious Codes 3. The Anthropological Code The Concept of Judge The Ethnographic Context The Oral Code 4.The Literary Code The Polemic Lyric Code The Nonpolemic Lyric Code The Narratological Code The Aesthetic Literary Code II. TRANSDISCIPLINARY CODES 5. The Thematic Code Closing and Opening of Thematics The Theme as Starting Point The Thematic Code at Work The Thematic Code as Censor The Code as Method 6.The Gender Code The Gendered Subject The Gender Code and the Narrarive The Gender Code and the Song Conclusion References Index