Journal•ISSN: 1946-2204
Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies
Project MUSE
About: Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Narrative & Narratology. It has an ISSN identifier of 1946-2204. Over the lifetime, 84 publications have been published receiving 904 citations.
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90 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define the term unnatural and outline a cognitive model that describes ways in which readers can make sense of unnatural scenarios in postmodernist narratives, and use these reading strategies to discuss examples of unnaturalness in post modernist narratives.
Abstract: One of the most interesting things about fictional nar ratives is that they do not only mimetically reproduce the world as we know it. Many narratives confront us with bizarre storyworlds which are governed by prin ciples that have very little to do with the real world around us. Even though many narrative texts teem with unnatural (i.e., physically or logically impossible) scenarios that take us to the limits of human cogni tion, narrative theory has not yet done justice to these cases of unnaturalness or the question of how readers can come to terms with them. In what follows, I define the term unnatural and outline a cognitive model that describes ways in which readers can make sense of unnatural scenarios. Second, I use these reading strategies to discuss examples of unnaturalness in postmodernist narratives.1 Arguing that ideas from cognitive narratology help illuminate
90 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take the words understanding, narrative, and hermeneutics as nouns that stand for diff erent though interrelated notions and propose an approach to human reality in which narrative plays a crucial role.
Abstract: Th is essay off ers two readings of its title. One takes the words understanding, narrative, and hermeneutics as nouns that stand for diff erent though interrelated notions; the other proposes an understanding of hermeneutics as an approach to human reality in which narrative plays a crucial role. Th e fi rst reading could be said to be concerned with three distinct notions and their overlap and interplay, being aware that each term is unfolded in a broader tradition of its own. Th ere are, for example, more forms and practices of human understanding and meaningmaking than those we call narrative; there is more to narrative than that it enacts processes of understanding; and hermeneutics is a fi eld of inquiry that reaches beyond not only processes of narrative understanding but also beyond processes of understanding in general (acknowledging the border zones and limits of understanding). It is with this in mind that we want to point out that, and show how, the hermeneutic approach explores in-
42 citations
40 citations