Although narrative inquiry has a long intellectual history both in and out of education, it is increasingly used in studies of educational experience. One theory in educational research holds that humans are storytelling organisms who, individually and socially, lead storied lives. Thus, the study of narrative is the study of the ways humans experience the world. This general concept is refined into the view that education and educational research is the construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories; learners, teachers, and researchers are storytellers and characters in their own and other's stories. In this paper we briefly survey forms of narrative inquiry in educational studies and outline certain criteria, methods, and writing forms, which we describe in terms of beginning the story, living the story, and selecting stories to construct and reconstruct narrative plots. Certain risks, dangers, and abuses possible in narrative studies are discussed. We conclude by describing a two-part r...

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Stories of Experience and Narrative Inquiry

This essay proposes a conception of genre based on conventionalized social motives which are found in recurrent situation‐types. The thesis is that genre must be conceived in terms of rhetorical action rather than substance or form.

Genre as social action

In this revised second edition, Deirdre McCloskey demonstrates how economic discourse employs metaphor, authority, symmetry and other rhetorical means of persuasion. ""The Rhetoric of Economics"" shows economists to be human persuaders and poets of the marketplace, even in their most technical and mathematical moods. It is further enhanced by three new chapters and two new bibliographies.

The Rhetoric of Economics

Television has conditioned us to tolerate visually entertaining material measured out in spoonfuls of time, to the detriment of rational public discourse and reasoned public affairs. In this eloquent, persuasive book, Neil Postman alerts us to the real and present dangers of this state of affairs, and offers compelling suggestions as to how to withstand the media onslaught. Before we hand over politics, education, religion, and journalism to the show business demands of the television age, we must recognize the ways in which the media shape our lives and the ways we can, in turn, shape them to serve out highest goals.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

This essay proposes a theory of human communication based on a conception of persons as homo narrans. It compares and contrasts this view with the traditional rational perspective on symbolic interaction. The viability of the narrative paradigm and its attendant notions of reason and rationality are demonstrated through an extended analysis of key aspects of the current nuclear war controversy and a brief application to The Epic of Gilgamesh. The narrative paradigm synthesizes two strands in rhetorical theory: the argumentative, persuasive theme and the literary, aesthetic theme.

Narration as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument

A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance.

In A Natural Perspective, distinguished critic Northrop Frye maintains that Shakespeare's comedy is widely misunderstood and underestimated, and that the four romances - Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest - are the inevitable culmination of the poet's career. Rather than comment only on individual plays, Frye treats the comedies as a group unified by recurrent structures, devices, and images: the storm at sea, the identical twins, the heroine disguised as a boy, the retreat into the forest, the heroine with a mysterious father.

A Natural Perspective: The Development Of Shakespearean Comedy And Romance.

Fables of identity

From the Great Code

THE PRESIDENCY of the MLA is a short-term office, perhaps designed to represent the usual academic attitude to official positions. As president, I have had the honor of writing begging letters to some of you, but the title of PMLA, which I might assume on the analogy of the Royal Academy, is otherwise engaged, and chairing half a dozen meetings does not, even in these instant-administration days, leave much of an odor of charisma behind. I understand that in the recent election campaign President Ford's advisers tried to take advantage of the fact that the American system does not distinguish between the head of state and the head of government. They felt that, if an incumbent President would just stand there, his impressive position would have the best chance of being confirmed by the vote. But the MLA does distinguish the two, and Bill Schaefer will remain the head of government after the head of state has vanished into limbo tomorrow night, like one of the divine kings in The Golden Bough, who hears the grinding of axes in the background as soon as he has failed to satisfy one of his wives. However, the ritual banquet on his body and blood has been commuted to an allegory. He is required only to make the equivalent of a speech from the throne, a speech that is an expression neither of royal will, as in Tudor times, nor of government policy, as now, but is rather an effort to express a collective consciousness, to gain some perspective on this confused and crowded assemblage.

Northrop Frye

Papers

A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance.

A Natural Perspective: The Development Of Shakespearean Comedy And Romance.

Fables of identity

From the Great Code

Presidential Address 1976