Frank Kermode and the Invented World@@@The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction
TL;DR: Kermode as mentioned in this paper explored the relationship of fiction to age-old conceptions of chaos and crisis and found new insights into some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas.
Abstract: A pioneering attempt to relate the theory of literary fiction to a more general theory of fiction, using fictions of apocalypse as a model. This pioneering exploration of the relationship of fiction to age-old conceptions of chaos and crisis offers many new insights into some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas. Examining the works of a wide range of writers from Plato to William Burroughs, Kermode demonstrates how writers have persistently imposed their \"fictions\" upon the face of eternity and how these have reflected the apocalyptic spirit.
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TL;DR: The authors briefly survey forms of narrative inquiry in educational studies and outline certain criteria, methods, and writing forms, which they describe in terms of beginning the story, living the story and selecting stories to construct and reconstruct narrative plots.
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...
4,981Â citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This article argued that narrative is a solution to a problem of general human concern, namely, the problem of how to translate knowing into telling, and fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture-specific.
Abstract: To raise the question of the nature of narrative is to invite reflection on the very nature of culture and, possibly, even on the nature of humanity itself. So natural is the impulse to narrate, so inevitable is the form of narrative for any report of the way things really happened, that narrativity could appear problematical only in a culture in which it was absent-absent or, as in some domains of contemporary Western intellectual and artistic culture, programmatically refused. As a panglobal fact of culture, narrative and narration are less problems than simply data. As the late (and already profoundly missed) Roland Barthes remarked, narrative "is simply there like life itself. . international, transhistorical, transcultural."' Far from being a problem, then, narrative might well be considered a solution to a problem of general human concern, namely, the problem of how to translate knowing into telling,2 the problem of fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture-specific. We may not be able fully to comprehend specific thought patterns of another culture, but we have relatively less difficulty understanding a story coming from another culture, however exotic that
1,640Â citations
Book•
01 Jan 2002TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an excellent introduction for courses focused on narrative but also an invaluable resource for students and scholars across a wide range of fields, including literature and drama, film and media, society and politics, journalism, autobiography, history, and still others throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
Abstract: What is narrative? How does it work and how does it shape our lives? H. Porter Abbott emphasizes that narrative is found not just in literature, film, and theatre, but everywhere in the ordinary course of people's lives. This widely used introduction, now revised and expanded in its third edition, is informed throughout by recent developments in the field and includes one new chapter. The glossary and bibliography have been expanded, and new sections explore unnatural narrative, retrograde narrative, reader-resistant narratives, intermedial narrative, narrativity, and multiple interpretation. With its lucid exposition of concepts, and suggestions for further reading, this book is not only an excellent introduction for courses focused on narrative but also an invaluable resource for students and scholars across a wide range of fields, including literature and drama, film and media, society and politics, journalism, autobiography, history, and still others throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
1,236Â citations
TL;DR: This paper presents narrative as a framework for understanding the subject and interview data in qualitative research and examples of narrative approaches are offered, narrative analyses are contrasted with other kinds of qualitative analyses, and truth in narratives is considered.
Abstract: There is a new attention across disciplines to narrative knowing--the impulse to story life events into order and meaning. In this paper, narrative is presented as a framework for understanding the subject and interview data in qualitative research. Examples of narrative approaches are offered, narrative analyses are contrasted with other kinds of qualitative analyses, and truth in narratives is considered.
854Â citations
01 Jan 1989
TL;DR: Some preliminary ideas on narrative inquiry in educational studies and educational reform are presented in this paper, with a focus on experience and time, personal knowledge, and reflection and deliberation, and the process of narrative inquiry is discussed.
Abstract: Some preliminary ideas on narrative inquiry in educational studies and educational reform are presented. Illustrations from Bay Street School (drawn from a 9-year research project on personal knowledge and narrative) are included. Since whatever may be said about narrative as method follows from its character as phenomenon, the aspects of narrative's phenomenal character necessary for discussing method are explained. The elements in an idea of narrative method are noted, with a focus on experience and time, personal knowledge, and reflection and deliberation. In addition, the process of narrative inquiry is discussed. One way to think of the process is that it is possible to find what can be described or accounted for within the experiential texts being created in the shared narrative inquiry process. When researchers record field notes of participant observation, t1ere is an interpretive quality involved. Interpretations arc. offered because one of the main functions of research from a narrativist point of view is to foster reflection and restorying by the participants. Part of the concern in narrative inquiry is with audience, and narrative researchers must consider issues of representation and audience. Narrative researchers set out their narrative purposes and an appropriate context; they then counsel readers to play the believing game to ascertain the truth of the story. Readers assuming this way of participating in the narrative experience of another must be prepared to see a story's possible meanings and, through this process, come to see other ways of telling their own stories. Contains 52 references. (SM) ***** **Irx*********v*********** ********* ***ye ****** ********* ***** ******** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. NARRATIVE AND STORY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH
394Â citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: The authors briefly survey forms of narrative inquiry in educational studies and outline certain criteria, methods, and writing forms, which they describe in terms of beginning the story, living the story and selecting stories to construct and reconstruct narrative plots.
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...
4,981Â citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This article argued that narrative is a solution to a problem of general human concern, namely, the problem of how to translate knowing into telling, and fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture-specific.
Abstract: To raise the question of the nature of narrative is to invite reflection on the very nature of culture and, possibly, even on the nature of humanity itself. So natural is the impulse to narrate, so inevitable is the form of narrative for any report of the way things really happened, that narrativity could appear problematical only in a culture in which it was absent-absent or, as in some domains of contemporary Western intellectual and artistic culture, programmatically refused. As a panglobal fact of culture, narrative and narration are less problems than simply data. As the late (and already profoundly missed) Roland Barthes remarked, narrative "is simply there like life itself. . international, transhistorical, transcultural."' Far from being a problem, then, narrative might well be considered a solution to a problem of general human concern, namely, the problem of how to translate knowing into telling,2 the problem of fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture-specific. We may not be able fully to comprehend specific thought patterns of another culture, but we have relatively less difficulty understanding a story coming from another culture, however exotic that
1,640Â citations
Book•
01 Jan 2002TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an excellent introduction for courses focused on narrative but also an invaluable resource for students and scholars across a wide range of fields, including literature and drama, film and media, society and politics, journalism, autobiography, history, and still others throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
Abstract: What is narrative? How does it work and how does it shape our lives? H. Porter Abbott emphasizes that narrative is found not just in literature, film, and theatre, but everywhere in the ordinary course of people's lives. This widely used introduction, now revised and expanded in its third edition, is informed throughout by recent developments in the field and includes one new chapter. The glossary and bibliography have been expanded, and new sections explore unnatural narrative, retrograde narrative, reader-resistant narratives, intermedial narrative, narrativity, and multiple interpretation. With its lucid exposition of concepts, and suggestions for further reading, this book is not only an excellent introduction for courses focused on narrative but also an invaluable resource for students and scholars across a wide range of fields, including literature and drama, film and media, society and politics, journalism, autobiography, history, and still others throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
1,236Â citations
TL;DR: This paper presents narrative as a framework for understanding the subject and interview data in qualitative research and examples of narrative approaches are offered, narrative analyses are contrasted with other kinds of qualitative analyses, and truth in narratives is considered.
Abstract: There is a new attention across disciplines to narrative knowing--the impulse to story life events into order and meaning. In this paper, narrative is presented as a framework for understanding the subject and interview data in qualitative research. Examples of narrative approaches are offered, narrative analyses are contrasted with other kinds of qualitative analyses, and truth in narratives is considered.
854Â citations
01 Jan 1989
TL;DR: Some preliminary ideas on narrative inquiry in educational studies and educational reform are presented in this paper, with a focus on experience and time, personal knowledge, and reflection and deliberation, and the process of narrative inquiry is discussed.
Abstract: Some preliminary ideas on narrative inquiry in educational studies and educational reform are presented. Illustrations from Bay Street School (drawn from a 9-year research project on personal knowledge and narrative) are included. Since whatever may be said about narrative as method follows from its character as phenomenon, the aspects of narrative's phenomenal character necessary for discussing method are explained. The elements in an idea of narrative method are noted, with a focus on experience and time, personal knowledge, and reflection and deliberation. In addition, the process of narrative inquiry is discussed. One way to think of the process is that it is possible to find what can be described or accounted for within the experiential texts being created in the shared narrative inquiry process. When researchers record field notes of participant observation, t1ere is an interpretive quality involved. Interpretations arc. offered because one of the main functions of research from a narrativist point of view is to foster reflection and restorying by the participants. Part of the concern in narrative inquiry is with audience, and narrative researchers must consider issues of representation and audience. Narrative researchers set out their narrative purposes and an appropriate context; they then counsel readers to play the believing game to ascertain the truth of the story. Readers assuming this way of participating in the narrative experience of another must be prepared to see a story's possible meanings and, through this process, come to see other ways of telling their own stories. Contains 52 references. (SM) ***** **Irx*********v*********** ********* ***ye ****** ********* ***** ******** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. NARRATIVE AND STORY IN PRACTICE AND RESEARCH
394Â citations