Northrop Frye

Bio: Northrop Frye is an academic researcher from American Academy of Religion. The author has contributed to research in topics: Literary criticism & Poetry. The author has an hindex of 30, co-authored 159 publications receiving 7462 citations. Previous affiliations of Northrop Frye include University of Iowa.

Northrop Frye's Notebooks on Romance

Abstract: Romance was a theme that ran through much of Northrop Frye's corpus, and his notebooks and typed notes on the subject are plentiful. This unpublished material, written between 1944 and 1989, traces a remarkable re-evaluation in his thinking over the course of time. As a young scholar, Frye insisted that romance was an expression of cultural decadence; however, in his later years, he thought of it as .the structural core of all fiction. The unpublished material Michael Dolzani has gathered for Northrop Frye's Notebooks on Romance shows how the pattern and conventions of romance inform the writing of history, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, and theology. While Frye is best known for his writing on myth and biblical scholarship, he himself eventually conceived of romance as the true and equal contrary to myth and scripture, a .secular scripture. whose message is de te fabula, .this story is about you. Given the current popular revival of romance in fiction and film, the appearance of Frye's unpublished work on romance is of profound importance.

Stories of Experience and Narrative Inquiry

Abstract: 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...

Genre as social action

Abstract: 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.

The Rhetoric of Economics

Abstract: 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.

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

Abstract: 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.

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

Abstract: 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.