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Showing papers in "Narrative in 2006"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, the activation of mirror neurons in the brains of onlookers can be recorded as they witness another's actions and emotional reactions as mentioned in this paper, and the possibility that reading stimulates mirror neurons' activation can now, as never before, undergo neuroscientific investigation.
Abstract: We are living in a time when the activation of mirror neurons in the brains of onlookers can be recorded as they witness another’s actions and emotional reactions. 1 Contemporary neuroscience has brought us much closer to an understanding of the neural basis for human mind reading and emotion sharing abilities—the mechanisms underlying empathy. The activation of onlookers’ mirror neurons by a coach’s demonstration of technique or an internal visualization of proper form and by representations in television, film, visual art, and pornography has already been recorded. 2 Simply hearing a description of an absent other’s actions lights up mirror neuron areas during fMRI imaging of the human brain. 3 The possibility that novel reading stimulates mirror neurons’ activation can now, as never before, undergo neuroscientific investigation. Neuroscientists have already declared that people scoring high on empathy tests have especially busy mirror neuron systems in their brains. 4 Fiction writers are likely to be among these high empathy individuals. For the first time we might investigate whether human differences in mirror neuron activity can be altered by exposure to art, to teaching, to literature. This newly enabled capacity to study empathy at the cellular level encourages speculation about human empathy’s positive consequences. These speculations are not new, as any student of eighteenth-century moral sentimentalism will affirm, but they dovetail with efforts on the part of contemporary virtue ethicists, political philosophers, educators, theologians, librarians, and interested parties such as authors and publishers to connect the experience of empathy, including its literary

389 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the case of transnational or transethnic adoption, parents construct a simulacrum of the birth culture by providing "same-race role models" and incorporating into family life cultural fragments that are supposed to be authentic but that are, inevitably, translated and hybridized.
Abstract: Life stories of adopted people often have complex narrative lines, since to the already insurmountable difficulty of any human effort to know and fix one’s origin is often added the extra difficulty of lack of information about birth parents, date, place, and, as the oxymoronic current language has it, “birth culture” (see e.g. Tompkins 276). Starting in the 1970s, with the emergence of the search and open adoption movements, with increasing opposition to the placement of minority children out of their birth communities, and with newer practices of transnational adoption modeled on these existing practices, U.S. adoption culture has placed a high value on knowledge of personal (familial, genetic) origins and “birth culture.” 1 In most cases access to such knowledge is thwarted, however, whether by law or by circumstance, so adoptive families generate doubles and substitutes. Adoption day is celebrated as well as the often conjectural birthday; narratives of the adoption trip or first encounter are told in place of birth stories; and in the case of transnational or transethnic adoption, parents construct a simulacrum of the “birth culture” by providing “same-race role models” 2 and incorporating into family life cultural fragments (holidays, food, clothing) that are supposed to be authentic but that are, inevitably, translated and hybridized. Transnational adoptive families embark on “roots trips” to the scenes where an origin might be reconstructed: to the city, orphanage, street or police station where the child was found. In the case of U.S. domestic adoptions, adult adoptees embark on searches for birth parents. The roots trip makes origins seem knowable, memorable, documentable, yet again and again in the narratives of such journeys, origins are fictionally constructed in the face of admissions that they cannot otherwise be known. 3 And search narratives, like the epic

51 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The concept of literary genre is not a new concept; in fact, it is as old as the recorded history of humankind as discussed by the authors, and it has been seen as a classifying principle, putting the many subsets of literature under the rule of normative sets.
Abstract: What would literary history look like if the field were divided, not into discrete periods, and not into discrete bodies of national literatures? What other organizing principles might come into play? And how would they affect the mapping of “literature” as an analytic object: the length and width of the field; its lines of filiation, lines of differentiation; the database needed in order to show significant continuity or significant transformation; and the bounds of knowledge delineated, the arguments emerging as a result? In this essay, I propose one candidate to begin this line of rethinking: the concept of literary genre. Genre, of course, is not a new concept; in fact, it is as old as the recorded history of humankind. Even though the word itself is of relatively recent vintage (derived from French, in turn derived from the Latin genus), 1 the idea that there are different kinds of literature (or at least different kinds of poetry) came from ancient Greece. Traditionally it has been seen as a classifying principle, putting the many subsets of literature under the rule of normative sets. Theorists like Benedotto Croce have objected to it on just these grounds. “[I]nstead of asking before a work of art if it be expressive and what it expresses,” genre criticism only wants to label it, putting it into a pigeonhole, asking only “if it obey the laws of epic or of tragedy.” Nothing can be more misguided, Croce says, for these “laws of the kinds” have never in fact been observed by practicing writers (36 ‐37). 2 Derrida makes the same point. “As soon as genre announces itself, one

44 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Strawson as discussed by the authors argued that the self, considered as a self, is a "now" phenomenon disconnected from the past and the future, and an attack against the prevailing Diachronie approach to self experience.
Abstract: In the December 2004 issue of Ratio, Galen Strawson published an important essay in which he mounted a groundbreaking attack against what has become virtu ally the standard view of how we construe our lives: the narrative identity thesis, which insists that our identity is a function of the story that we construct about our selves. Specifically, he forcefully challenges both the descriptive and normative as pects of the thesis, the judgment, on the one hand, that, in Oliver Sacks's words, "each of us constructs and lives a narrative" (105), and the judgment, on the other, that, as Marya Schechtman puts it, we ought to construct our lives narratively, that, indeed, we must do so to achieve full personhood (119). The overall argument of Strawson's piece divides into two major sections, each of which has two parts: (1) a defense of what he calls an Episodic approach to self-experience, in which the self, considered as self, is a "now" phenomenon disconnected from the past and the future, and an attack against what he calls the prevailing Diachronie approach to self experience, in which the self, considered as a self, is understood to persist in time from the past into the future; and (2) a defense of a non-Narrative form of self-repre sentation and an attack against the dominance of the Narrative form of self-represen tation. The aim of Strawson's case at large is to reconfigure the terms and the conditions of the discussion of the relations obtaining between the self and its repre sentation. In my view, one cannot read this piece without being impressed by its icon oclastic turn, by its temerity in facing down the almost universal endorsement of the narrative identity thesis, and by its unflinching insistence that the Episodic/non Narrative approach to self-representation has equal standing with the Diachronie/ Narrative approach, that in point of fact it just might be, primus inter pares.

34 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper defined narrative identity as "the notion that what we are is a story of some kind." Before investigating its social and somatic sources, I added that I regarded this idea as "counterintuitive and even extravagant." James Phelan liked my characterization of narrative identity enough to quote it twice in an article of his own in Narrative last October.
Abstract: What is narrative identity? In an article I published in this journal two years ago, I defined it as "the notion that what we are is a story of some kind." Before investigating its social and somatic sources, I added that I regarded this idea as "counterintuitive and even extravagant." James Phelan liked my characterization of narrative identity enough to quote it twice in an article of his own in Narrative last October. In that "Editor's Column," Phelan praises the British philosopher Galen Strawson for "his overall effort to debunk the narrative identity thesis" as "both effective and salutary" (209). As the lead-in to his commentary on Strawson, Phelan casts me as the apostle of narrative identity, and it would seem to follow, accordingly, that my views have been "debunked" by Strawson. As Phelan concludes, I'd be guilty-along with Oliver Sacks, Jerome Bruner, and others-of "reducing the numerous and complex relations between the self and one's narratives about the self to a single [narrative] model" (210). When I finished reading the "Editor's Column," I didn't recognize myself in Phelan's "Eakin," not surprisingly because Phelan quotes me selectively to suit his own agenda, a protest against what he calls "narrative imperialism," "the impulse by students of narrative to claim..,. more and more power for our object of study and our ways of studying it" (206). So to set the record straight at the outset, permit me to run the entire passage in which Phelan found his cue. In what follows, I reflect on Oliver Sacks's observation that "it might be said that each of us constructs and lives a 'narrative', and that this narrative is us, our identities" (110, emphasis original):

30 citations


Journal ArticleDOI

29 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, Rudrum argues that the notion of narrative as a representation of a sequence of events does not capture the distinction between a set of instructions for building model airplanes and what Rudrum regards as a genuine narrative, namely a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.
Abstract: In his article "From Narrative Representation to Narrative Use: Towards the Limits of Definition," David Rudrum argues that definitions of narrative based on what the text represents are fundamentally flawed: "As long as narratology remains tied to [a conception of narrative as representation], and tied to a philosophy of language that foregrounds signification above and before questions of use and practice, it seems that a satisfactory way of defining and classifying its subject matter will continue to elude it" (203). Here, in a nutshell, is the argument. Narrative has traditionally been defined as the representation of a sequence of events. But this definition fails to capture the distinction between a set of instructions for building model airplanes (Figure Two in the text) and what Rudrum regards as a genuine narrative, namely a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip (Figure One). To distinguish the narrative status of these two representations of sequences of events, we must take into consideration how the text is used.

21 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The relationship between lyric and narrative has been studied in the context of carpe diem poetry as mentioned in this paper, where the speaker is continuing to threaten the ending of his relationship with his lady, a declaration that is at once intensified and undermined by the refrain's repetition of "I have done".
Abstract: Even when representing other issues with the precise detail and complex col oration of Mughal painting at its best, many studies adopt the bold gestural strokes of Franz Kline to discuss the relationship between lyric and narrative.1 Lyric is static and narrative committed to change, lyric is internalized whereas narrative evokes an externally realized situation, lyric attempts to impede the forward thrust of narrative, and so on. Offering a more theorized but still diametrical contrast, Jonathan Culler posits the narrative and the apostrophic as the two poles for poetry, with lyric typi cally "the triumph of the apostrophic" (149).2 Such contrasts too often become even bolder?and even balder?when students of lyric generalize about narrative, and vice versa. But what happens if one plays such commonplaces about the two modes against the complexities of a text that not only participates in but also thematizes them? Sir Thomas Wyatt's "My lute, awake!" defamiliarizes putative generic norms and thus invites us to rethink the relationship between lyric and narrative. In the sixth stanza of Wyatt's lyric, the speaker is continuing to assert?or is he continuing to threaten??the ending of his relationship with his lady, a declaration that is at once intensified and undermined by the refrain's repetition of "I have done." Participating in, even exemplifying, the carpe diem tradition, the passage in question anticipates the lady's loss of beauty: "Perchaunce the lye wethered and old, / The wynter nyghtes that are so cold, / Playning in vain unto the mone; / Thy wisshes then dare

19 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Rudrum as mentioned in this paper argues that when we try to commit our knowledge to paper, it inevitably turns out that for every generalisation there is an exception, for every taxonomy there is a misfit, and for every definition there is always room for further definition, as extraneous elements creep into our classifications.
Abstract: David Rudrum - On the Very Idea of a Definition of Narrative: A Reply to Marie-Laure Ryan - Narrative 14:2 Narrative 14.2 (2006) 197-204 On the Very Idea of a Definition of Narrative: A Reply to Marie-Laure Ryan David Rudrum I "Quid est ergo tempus?", St. Augustine famously asked. "Si nemo ex me quaerat scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio". These words, which strike me as some of the most deeply honest and self-aware of his Confessions, describe an experience that must surely be familiar to most narratologists: Augustine's philosophical musings on the nature of time lead him to conclude that when no-one is asking him what time is, he knows, but as soon as he attempts to explain it, it turns out that he doesn't know. So it is with narrative. Mutatis mutandis, we all know what a narrative is: we all recognise one when we see one. But when we try to commit our knowledge to paper, it inevitably turns out that for every generalisation there is an exception, for every taxonomy there is a misfit, and for every definition there is always room for further definition, as extraneous elements creep into our classifications. Such, no doubt, is life. The question then arises as to the consequences of a knowledge that is simultaneously present and absent. It would seem odd (or, better, wrong) to claim that we don't know what a narrative is if our definitions of it are unsatisfactory. Is anyone going to claim that Augustine didn't know what he was talking about...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, the authors pointed out that one of the unstated conventions of the courtship novel is that the lovers must undergo a traumatic experience, a violent shift from innocence to self-knowledge, before their union can be consummated.
Abstract: tions of late eighteenth-century novels of courtship and romance, this omission is en tirely understandable, for they obviously bear what Ludwig Wittgenstein called "a family" resemblance (17). What distinguishes the plot of the courtship novel is its depiction of the entrance of a young woman into adult society and her subsequent choice among competing suitors. The choice is not without its anxieties, however, for one of the unstated conventions of the courtship novel is that the lovers must un dergo a traumatic experience, a violent shift from innocence to self-knowledge be fore their union can be consummated.

Journal ArticleDOI
Ming Dong Gu1
TL;DR: The authors argued that Chinese fiction theory cannot have meaningful dialogues with its Western counterpart and pointed out that there has been so far no systematic view of Chinese fiction theories that treat Chinese fiction as a separate entity from the Western system.
Abstract: Fiction study is now an international subject of inquiry When scholars talk about fiction theory, however, they usually refer to European or Western fiction the- ory Even in studies of other time-honored literary traditions, discussions of fiction theory are always conducted in terms of Western concepts like mimesis, realism, nat- uralism, postmodernism, and so on This gives rise to two opposite views in the field of Chinese and comparative literature One emphasizes the unique nature of tradi- tional Chinese fiction and considers fiction theory arising therefrom as something that must be set apart from the Western system The other, using Western fiction the- ory as the yardstick, implicitly views characteristic features of Chinese fiction as anomalies or even limitations Ostensibly, the two tendencies differ, but in essence they share a commonality, that is, both imply that Chinese fiction theory cannot have meaningful dialogues with its Western counterpart Regretfully, studies of Chinese fiction are, with only a few exceptions, 1 largely confined to historical scholarship or practical criticism and, cherish precious little interest in conceptual inquiries into the conditions of fiction Studies with theoretical orientations came under another aspect of the Western influence, 2 and have been subsumed under the catch-all category of "narrative" (xushi) defined in the broadest sense, which covers all discursive materi- als but does not focus exclusively on "fiction" as a literary and aesthetic category As a result, there has been so far no systematic view of Chinese fiction theory that treats


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors of this jointly written response to the arti cle published by Kathryn Hume in 2005 have decided from the very beginning to merge their ideas and remarks on the subject.
Abstract: The following reflections on "narrative speed" are an attempt to remediate the traditional 'reply'to a scholarly article, followed by a 'reply to the reply'by the first author. Instead, the two authors of this jointly written response to the arti cle published by Kathryn Hume in 2005 have decided from the very beginning to merge their ideas and remarks on the subject. They have tried from the very beginning to conceive their exchange as an integrated dialogue, the results of which they hope to be useful for the whole narrative/Narrative community. Our thanks go also to the participants of the session on "Contemporary Narratol ogy" held during the last International Conference of Narrative (Ottawa, 2006), whose remarks on a draft version of this text have been extremely useful.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explored the metanarrative aspects of The Lord of the Rings, including characters' conversations about narrative, and features of the novel's structure and narrative technique that illus- trate some of the points made in the characters" conversations.
Abstract: Popularity, for a writer of fiction, can be a double-edged sword: Surely writers want their work to be read and appreciated, and royalty checks are always welcome; but some forms of enthusiastic reception may give other potential readers a mislead- ing impression of what a work is like. Such may be the case with The Lord of the Rings. Its popularity with the opt-out culture in the '60s, the prevalence of buttons reading "Frodo Lives" in the '70s, and people in elf costume lining up for movies in this decade have, perhaps, led some to suppose that the work can appeal only to rel- atively naive readers, that it would not reward the kind of critical analysis that more sophisticated fiction receives. Or perhaps it is simply that many of us read the work as teenagers and have never returned to it. Whatever the reason, there has been a gen- eral neglect of The Lord of the Rings among scholars of fiction. Certainly, no articles on Tolkien have appeared in Narrative before, or in other journals with broad audi- ences such as ELH or PMLA. (Specialized scholarship on Tolkien, on the other hand, has proceeded quietly for many years and includes some work of very high quality; for an overview, see Drout and Wynne.) But this is beginning to change: Modern Fic- tion Studies, for example, recently ran a special issue on Tolkien (Hughes). With this article, I hope to contribute to that change by demonstrating some of the richness of Tolkien's fiction for inquiries into the structure and function of narrative. Spe- cifically, I will explore the metanarrative aspects of The Lord of the Rings: These include characters' conversations about narrative (which are sometimes self- referential) and features of the novel's structure and narrative technique that illus- trate some of the points made in the characters' conversations—and in ours.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The relationship between painting and narration is explored in this paper, where it is shown that juxtaposing a picture with its narrative interpretation always produces a visual surplus that cannot be ver balized, so that a kind of hiatus exists between the two.
Abstract: A reading of art books, critical essays or interpretations of paintings reveals that various writers frequently approach figurative painting in narrative terms. For some writers narrativity is the main core of the interpretation of a painting, while for oth ers it is of lesser importance. However, even those critics for whom narrativity is a marginal aspect of interpretation consider it an inseparable part of understanding a painting as a whole.1 Looking at paintings from the viewpoint of the narrative interpretations given to them renders an equivocal feeling. On the one hand, seeing a picture as an evolving sit uation seems natural, yet, on the other, there remains a persistent gap between the pic ture and the narrative discourse it entails. Despite the apparent connection between the narrative discourse and the painting, it appears that from the moment the discourse is uttered and stands on its own feet, there is an inevitable disruption between this dis course and the painting which brought it about. Narrative interpretation, by definition, produces a coherent stable structure of meaning. Viewing a picture, however, is frag mentary by nature; its temporality is not necessarily successive and does not correlate with the strict criteria that narrative structure demands. It seems that juxtaposing a pic ture with its narrative interpretation always produces a visual surplus that cannot be ver balized, so that a kind of hiatus exists between the two as a result of their positioning. What is the relation between painting and narrativity? Does narrativity by defi nition contradict visuality, and if so, why is it so prevalent in the context of painting? Furthermore, how can one explain the complicated relationship of attraction and re jection that has always existed between painting and narrativity? 2 In the hundreds of years during which the term narrative was used solely as a characteristic of literary texts, thinking about narrativity in painting entailed a

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how the theory of possible worlds may underpin certain aspects of the narrative of drama and performance, and more specifically, the 1990 play, Possible Worlds, by Canadian playwright John Mighton.
Abstract: Do possible worlds really exist? Or is there one (actual) world, and infinitely many (im)possibilial Despite sounding like something out of science fiction fantasy or theoretical physics, depending on who you run with, the question of possible worlds has been debated in certain philosophical circles since the turn of the twenti eth century, ranging from set theory in mathematics to modal philosophy to semi otics.1 The link between the three disciplines lies in the ontological fiat, or performative, that brings a possible world into "existence," however that existence may be defined. For Umberto Eco, possible worlds are at base "cultural constructs," but, then again, so is the real world; for David Lewis, the founder of modal realism, possible worlds are just as real as the real world; and for David Hubert, one of the early developers of mathematical set theory, the set-theoretical universe, which un derpins possible worlds theory, quite simply is paradise.2 My project in this essay is to detect if (and how) the theory of possible worlds may underpin certain aspects of the narrative of drama and performance, and more specifically, the 1990 play, Possible Worlds, by Canadian playwright John Mighton. In order to do so, I will interrogate the seminal article Eco published in 1978 on tex tual semiotics, "Possible Worlds and Text Pragmatics: 'Un drame bien parisien'," and consider how the theory of possible worlds is transferable to a narratology of drama and performance. In the course of this discussion, though, I also want to peel back two further layers and consider: (1) the way Eco's work depends upon and de parts from the possible worlds theories of philosophy, especially that of Lewis, and (2) the way Lewis and Eco depend upon mathematical set theory. Finally, I hope to put the whole thing back together by appraising how the play Possible Worlds navi gates the theory(s) of possible worlds.3

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Munro as mentioned in this paper pointed out that "This novel is autobiographical in form but not in fact" (iv) and pointed out the formal differences traditionally attributed to men's writing and women's writing.
Abstract: On the copyright page of Lives of Girls and Women, published in 1972, author Alice Munro has included a caveat: "This novel is autobiographical in form but not in fact" (iv). While Munro's note clearly encourages analysis of the novel in terms of its dependence on and challenge to a traditional Kiinstlerroman structure, it also invites attention to the way protagonist Del Jordan's apprenticeship as a writer, as well as Munro's procedure of enacting an autobiography, is constructed in terms of a confrontation with form, particularly the formal differences traditionally attributed to men's writing and women's writing. In "Heirs to the Living Body," for example, Uncle Craig's methodic composition of a history of Wawanash County, as well as his work on the family tree, is contrasted with the energetic and fragmented storytelling of Aunt Elspeth and Aunt Grace. Craig's techniques reflect a creed of objectivity: "To Uncle Craig it seemed necessary that the names of all these people, their connections with each other, the three large dates of birth and marriage and death, or the two of birth and death if that was all that happened to them, be discovered, often with great effort and a stupendous amount of worldwide correspondence (he did not forget the branch of the family which had gone to Australia) and written down here, in order, in his own large careful handwriting" (Munro 26). On the other hand, the Aunts "told stories" (Munro 28); rather than describing their style, Munro depicts the gossipy tone of their overlapping dialogue, in which the two voices alternately blend together and reverberate off one another, and whose focus is the recollection of sensory detail. Del is initially irked to inherit Uncle

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Barbara Olson as mentioned in this paper pointed out that the concept of omni science can lead us astray when used in the analysis of narrative, and pointed out the fact that it is not a question of knowledge but of au thorial construction of a narrative focus.
Abstract: I welcome Barbara Olson's response as a contribution to a discussion of omni science that seems to me long overdue. I find I actually agree with several of her main points, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to clarify these and some others. I am struck that Professor Olson does not try to defend the claim in her book Authorial Divinity in the Twentieth Century I had criticized, namely that Heming way's "The Killers" features an omniscient narrator who just declines to tell us the many things that he knows. I had cited this as an example of how the concept of om niscience, with its focus on knowledge, can lead us astray when used in the analysis of narrative. Instead of concentrating on what we are told and its implications, we are led to speculate about what the teller knows, so indeed why not imagine that the teller knows the names and past histories of Max and Al and is just choosing not to tell us? The correct question?if analysis of the story is to be our goal?is why the author chooses not to present such information but restricts reports to what someone sitting in the caf? might have observed. It is not a question of knowledge but of au thorial construction of a narrative focus. The fact that Olson does not defend her

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the Wealth of Nations as mentioned in this paper, Adam Smith explained the mechanism by which feudal economic and social relations in Europe came to be transformed into relations typical of and dependent on capital markets, and provided a plausible hypothetical narrative to bridge the gap between earlier and later stages of society.
Abstract: In Book Three of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith attempts to explain the mechanism by which feudal economic and social relations in Europe came to be transformed into relations typical of and dependent on capital markets. The feudal forms were characterized by the power of large landowners, who supported hun dreds of retainers. However, Smith argues, with the gradual appearance of luxury goods, the great proprietors chose to adorn themselves rather than to support their re tainers: "For a pair of diamond buckles perhaps, or for something as frivolous and useless, they exchanged ... the price of the maintenance of a thousand men for a year, and with it the whole weight and authority which it could give them" (418-19). With their retainers dismissed, and their tenants becoming more independent, the large landholders bargained away their power, "not like Esau in time of hunger and necessity, but in wantonness of plenty, for trinkets and baubles fitter to be the play things of children than the serious pursuits of men" (421). Smith does not cite docu mentary or other sources to support his argument here, nor does he offer quantitative evidence or calculations. Instead, he provides a plausible hypothetical narrative to bridge the gap between earlier and later stages of society. His account is consistent with known or accepted facts and with an understanding of psychology ("all for our selves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind" [418]). But the narrative is also sharply