Showing papers on "Narrative structure published in 2016"

Understanding narrative inquiry : the crafting and analysis of stories as research

Abstract: 1. Locating Narrative Inquiry in the Interdisciplinary Context Scientific Research and Qualitative Research in Tandem Narrative Inquiry Narrative Inquiry in Different Disciplines Some Cautionary Tales About Narrative Inquiry Narrative Inquiry as the Synergy of Interdisciplinarity Learning to be a Storyteller in the Interdisciplinary Context Conclusion: A Falling Apple 2. Philosophical/Theoretical Underpinnings of Narrative Inquiry The Role of Theory Philosophical/Theoretical/Interpretive Paradigm Theory and Narrative Inquiry Critical Theory Critical Race Theory Feminist Theory Phenomenology Poststructuralism/Postmodernism/Deconstruction Dewey's Theory of Experience Bakhtin's Theory of Novelness Conclusion: No Theory Used as a Procrustean Bed 3. Narrative Research Design: Engaging in Aesthetic Play Engaging in Aesthetic Play Standards for Humanities-Oriented Research Learning to Think Narratively Plowing Before Sowing: On Reviewing the Literature Developing "Good" Research Questions Imagining the Researcher-Participant Relationship: From "Spy" to "Friend" Ethical Issues in Narrative Inquiry Qualitative Writing vs. Scientific Writing Imagining Narrative Writing as Aesthetic Play Conclusion: Where Your Heart Belongs 4. Narrative Research Genres: Meditating Stories Into Being Narrative Inquirer as a Midwife Narrative Research Genres Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry Biographical Narrative Inquiry Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry Literary-Based Narrative Inquiry Visual-Based Narrative Inquiry Conclusion: Blurring Genres 5. Narrative Data Collection Methods: Excavating Stories Narrative Thinking Interview Logistics Types of Qualitative Interview Narrative Interviewing Fieldwork Artifacts: Cabinets of Curiosities or Cabinets of Wonder Visual Data Digital Archival Data Conclusion: Excavating Stories as Data 6. Narrative Data Analysis and Interpretation: "Flirting" With Data On Flirtation Qualitative Data Analysis Theorizing Narrative Data Analysis and Interpretation Methods of Narrative Data Analysis Narrative Analysis in Narrative Genres Conclusion: Variegations of Narrative Analysis and Interpretation 7. Narrative Coda: Theorizing Narrative Meaning On Coda Researching Signature Answering the Question "So What?" Desiring and Audience Avoiding an Epic Closure Theorizing Findings Planting the Seed for Social Justice Becoming a Scheherazade Conclusion: Ongoing Stories 8. Critical Issues in Narrative Inquiry: Looking Into a Kaleidoscope Looking into a Kaleidoscope Contradicting Stories: The Rashomon Effect Temptation of Backyard Research On Reflexivity On Bricolage and Bricoleur On "Small" Stories Storytelling as Performance Conclusion: Pushing the Boundary of Narrative Inquiry 9. Examples of Narrative Inquiry: Theory Into Practice Narrative Inquiry as Phenomenon and Method Narrative Inquiry as Oral History Narrative Inquiry as Life Story Narrative Inquiry as Autoethnography Narrative Inquiry as Creative Fiction Narrative Inquiry as Fiction Conclusion: Learning to be a Storyteller 10. Epilogue

Role of Oral Proficiency on Reading Comprehension: Within-Language and Cross-Language Relationships.

Abstract: This longitudinal study examined the role of oral proficiency on English reading comprehension, as measured with elicited narratives using a wordless picture book, Frog Where are You?. The sample consisted 102 English language learners, including both Spanish and Cantonese speakers. Narrative samples were collected in the winter of first grade and reading skills were assessed on the same children one year later in second grade. Children were enrolled in either bilingual programs or mainstream programs. Multiple regression results show it was not the quantity and variety of words used in the narratives that predicted English reading comprehension one year later. Instead, the ability to produce a coherent oral narrative, in either the home language or English, explained a small variance in English reading comprehension for both English learner groups. These findings highlight the importance of examining narrative skills, especially as measured by narrative structure. Implications for parents and educators a...

Storia: Summarizing Social Media Content based on Narrative Theory using Crowdsourcing

Abstract: People from all over the world use social media to share thoughts and opinions about events, and understanding what people say through these channels has been of increasing interest to researchers, journalists, and marketers alike. However, while automatically generated summaries enable people to consume large amounts of data efficiently, they do not provide the context needed for a viewer to fully understand an event. Narrative structure can provide templates for the order and manner in which this data is presented to create stories that are oriented around narrative elements rather than summaries made up of facts. In this paper, we use narrative theory as a framework for identifying the links between social media content. To do this, we designed crowdsourcing tasks to generate summaries of events based on commonly used narrative templates. In a controlled study, for certain types of events, people were more emotionally engaged with stories created with narrative structure and were also more likely to recommend them to others compared to summaries created without narrative structure.

An architecture of narrative memory

Abstract: Narrative is ubiquitous. According to some models, this is due to the hypothesis that narrative is not only a successful way of communication, but a specific way of structuring knowledge. While most cognitive architectures acknowledge the importance of narrative, they usually do so from a functional point of view and not as a fundamental way of storing material in memory. The presented approach takes one step further towards the inclusion of narrative-aware structures in general cognitive architectures. In particular, the presented architecture studies how episodic memory and procedures in semantic memory can be redefined in terms of narrative structures. A formal definition of narrative for cognition and its constituents are presented, and the functions that an implementation of the architecture needs are described. The relative merits and the potential benefits with regard to general cognitive architectures are discussed and exemplified.

Narrative and Becoming

Abstract: Proposes a new model for understanding narrative, grounded in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze What is narrative? Ridvan Askin answers this question by bringing together aesthetics, contemporary North American fiction, Gilles Deleuze, narrative theory, and the recent speculative turn. Through this process he develops a transcendental empiricist concept of narrative. Against the established consensus of narrative theory he argues for an understanding of narrative as fundamentally nonhuman, unconscious, and expressive. Narrative and Becoming provides close readings of a number of contemporary North American fictions, most prominently Ana Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters (1986), Michael Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970), Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist , and Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves (2000), showcasing their genuine metaphysical quality.

Apophasis, contemplation, and the kenotic moment in Anglo-Saxon literature

Abstract: This thesis reveals the considerable influence of contemplation (sometimes referred to as mysticism) on Anglo-Saxon literature, manifested through the arrangement of narratives according to the theological concepts of apophasis and kenosis. This is demonstrated through a lengthy contextual discussion of the place of contemplation in Anglo-Saxon spirituality, and close analysis of four poems and a prose text. Although English mysticism is commonly thought to start in the High Middle Ages, this thesis will suggest that this terminus post quem should instead be resituated to the Anglo-Saxon period. The first chapter seeks to reveal the centrality of contemplation to Anglo-Saxon spirituality through analysing a range of diverse material, to evidence the monastic reader borne from this culture capable of reading and composing the texts that make up the rest of the thesis in the manner suggested. The thesis places chronologically diverse Anglo-Saxon texts in a contemplative context, with close reference to theology, phenomenology, and narrative structure, to suggest that our interpretation of them should be revised to apprehend the contemplative scheme that they advocate: to cleanse the reader of sin through inspiring penitence and kenosis (humility and emptying of one’s will) and direct the mind intellectually beyond the words, images and knowledge of the terrestrial sphere (apophasis), so as to prepare them for the potential coming of God’s grace in the form of a vision. This reading is supported by the close taxonomical resemblance of each text’s narrative structure. The thesis thus suggests that contemplation was central to Anglo-Saxon spirituality, producing an elite contemplative audience for whom certain texts were designed as preparative apparatus.

Showing versus telling: Comparing online video from newspaper and television websites

Abstract: Video has become a central part of news on the web. As an emerging form of news, news videos are appearing with varied narrative structures, styles and formats. Narrative structure is one way that ...

The queer case of video games: orgasms, Heteronormativity, and video game narrative

Abstract: In recent years, scholars have theorized about the narrative potential of video games. These conversations have helped to situate a complex new medium into the parameters of older forms of storytelling. This paper argues that these debates often privilege heteronormative formulations of narrative structure. Building on the work of Judith Roof (1996. Come as you are: Sexuality and narrative. New York: Columbia University Press), I illustrate how traditional narrative theory relies on masculine, heteronormative conceptualizations of a necessarily reproductive climax. Queer narrative theory, in contrast, focuses on the pleasurable possibilities embedded in the middle of the narrative. Similarly, gaming narratives play in the middle spaces where queer narrative thrives. Using this as a theoretical model, I explore how games are more effective in the narrative middle and provide a new lens for both narrative scholars and gaming scholars.

Self-reflexivity and metafiction in Achilles Tatius' Leukippe and Kleitophon

Abstract: This thesis examines the self-reflexive and metafictional aspects of Achilles Tatius’ Leukippe and Kleitophon. The aim is to map this self-reflexivity by examining the intricacy of its narrative structure, revealing the self-consciousness of the text, and thereby comment on the visibility of the author. Achilles Tatius is a notably difficult text. It presents a narrative of complexity, while appearing superficial. Scholars have recognised this complexity, but have yet to produce a clear analysis of how the text functions as a complete work. Through the discourse provided by the theory of ‘metafiction’, this complexity is able to be diagnosed and explored to its completion. It is only through the totality of the text that a complete understanding of Achilles’ novel becomes possible. In examining the text by book-pairs, a comprehensive and intelligent structure emerges, revealing a highly conscious text through its awareness of its own fictive structure. The consequence of providing a comprehensive analysis is that many of these insights cannot be explored to the extent they deserve, as more research remains to be done. The conclusion of the thesis will provide a larger understanding of how these

The Structure of Everyday Narrative in a City Market: An Ethnopoetics Approach

Abstract: This paper considers the value of Hymesian ethnopoetics as a means of analysing everyday narrative in conditions of mobility and change. The paper offers an account of the development of ethnopoetics as a means to make visible and valorize narrative in the Native American oral tradition, and as a method of revealing culturally specific relations of form and meaning. Hymes’ ethnopoetic approach viewed narrative structure as a reflection of a cultural tradition of meaning-making. Hymes’ analysis proposed that traditional narrative was a culturally shaped way of speaking, and analysis of narrative structure could reveal and recreate culture. His orientation rested on an assumption that the culture of a group was more or less stable and fixed. This paper adopts an approach to analysis based on ethnopoetics, representing everyday narrative dramatically, organized not only as lines and verses, but also as scenes and acts. Representation in scenes and acts makes visible the dynamic nature of the narrative. The paper asks whether Hymes’ ground-breaking work on ethnopoetics still has currency and purchase in 21st-century conditions of mobility, change, and unpredictability. Analysis of everyday narrative in a city market concludes that, notwithstanding the complexity of notions of ‘culture’ and ‘language’ in such conditions, ethnopoetics can be productively applied to everyday contexts for the analysis of narrative.

Patients as story-tellers of healthcare journeys

Abstract: There are gaps in our comprehension of patients' subjective experiences as they engage with and transit through the healthcare environments implicated in their treatment trajectories. Patients' stories, unlike patient experience data gathered in questionnaires and surveys, express the deeply personal, narrative nature of the journeys that patients take, creating opportunities for qualitative healthcare research. Yet narrative capabilities and propensities vary with individuals, and are affected by the stresses of illness and treatment. This article extends the growing interest in narrative competence training for both practitioners and patients with the investigation of a story-telling model that could facilitate patients to narrate their experiences of healthcare systems. This model is derived from the literary arts. In fiction and autobiography, the journey arc of the central character is often one in which he or she is compelled to leave the comfort of everyday life and face a series of extraordinary events involving challenge and change which forces the character towards practical, intellectual, psychological and philosophical adjustments that define, by the end of the story, the character's 'new normal'. This pattern is known as the 'hero journey'. Its parallels with patients' experiences of healthcare and the way people narrate their stories of illness have long been recognised. We present here a new idea for applying this model as a narrative structure by which patients may construct their stories about being in and moving through the healthcare system.

Reporting from the Field: The Narrative Reconstruction of Experience in Pick-up Artist Online Communities

Abstract: This study focuses on the reconstruction of experience in the online environment of the Pick-up Artist (PUA) community forums and aims to uncover yet another facet of personal narrative, namely the role and performance of framing in the reporting of events. Discursive psychologists have often pointed out that a narrative is not a precise reflection of reality but a device that itself shapes the social world because reality always under-determines the verbal representation of events. In this study, we show how the verbalisation of narrative guides the reader towards the intended understanding by establishing the shared knowledge schema in the community of practice. Utilising data from a specific genre in the PUA forums, the “field reports” (i.e. narrative reconstructions of encounters between the PUAs and women), we describe three pertinent layers of frames, how they are evoked linguistically and how they interact with each other. Our investigation of the hierarchical framing of the interaction as [pua training], [personal narrative] and [success report] shows that they are based on group-specific knowledge schemas but, at the same time, draw on conventionalised narrative structures.

The embodied narrative nature of learning: nurture in school

Abstract: Learning is participatory and embodied. It requires active participation from both teacher and learner to come together to co-create shared projects of discovery that allow meaning to unfold and develop between them. This paper advances theory on the intersubjective and embodied nature of cognition and meaning-making as constituted by co-created narrative units. Learning within embodied narrative episodes incorporate affective, energetic, and intentional components to produce schemas of engagement that structure knowledge and become units held in memory. We examine two cases of non-verbal narrative patterns of engagement between teacher and child within Nurture Group practice, a special pedagogy that attunes to the affects and interests of children. Analysis of these cases reveal patterns that established shared rhythm, affect, and body movement between teacher and child, which, on completion, generated shared joy and learning. Thus, we identify an embodied, co-created narrative structure of embodied cognition essential for learning and participatory meaning-making.

A Guided Tour of Literature Review: Facilitating Academic Paper Reading with Narrative Visualization

Abstract: Reading academic paper is a daily task for researchers and graduate students. However, reading effectively can be challenging, particularly for novices in scientific research. For example, when readers are reading the related work section that cites a fair number of references in limited page space, they often need to flip back and forth between the text and the references and may also frequently search elsewhere for more information about the references. This increases the difficulty of understanding a paper. In this paper, we propose a narrative visualization system that helps the reading of academic papers. As a first step, we adopt narrative visualization to present literature review as interactive slides. Specifically, we propose a narrative structure with three levels of granularities that the reader can drill down or roll up freely. The logic flow of a slideshow can be organized based on the paper's presentation or citations. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system through several case studies and user studies. The results show that the system allows users to quickly track and glance related work, making paper reading more effective and enjoyable.

Teacher Expectations and Student Literacy Engagement and Achievement.

Abstract: Notwithstanding the complex and dynamic nature of teaching and learning in schools, over four decades of research findings have consistently revealed a correlation between teacher expectations and student achievement. Focusing on teacher expectations for the narrative structures created by young children, this article features a discussion of data gathered during a multifaceted study with 7- and 8-year-old students. The overall purpose of the case study research was to explore the development of student understanding of elements of visual art and design and diverse narrative structures in picturebooks. For the culminating activity of the research, the students had opportunities to apply and transform their knowledge of the instructional foci when they composed their own multimodal print texts. Analysis of the students' narrative structures revealed the multiple forms of metalepsis, the purposeful breaking of storyworld/narrative boundaries, evident in their writing and artwork. In addition to a discussion about the socially situated nature of the children's multimodal text-making, the article includes a consideration of the importance of teacher expectations with respect to student literacy engagement and achievement.

The Narrative Quality of Game Mechanics

Abstract: This paper will introduce and discuss a new model for understanding the relation between narrative and games, by looking at the narrative quality of game mechanics. First, a review of the terms “Narrative” and “Game Mechanics” is made, and defined in this context, before a literature review, based on both narratological and ludological sources. From this, a model is presented and described, which encompasses the previous research as well as defining a clear relation between mechanics, context, story, and narratives of games. This model is intended for both design and analysis of games, and has been developed to cover a lack of definition of how game mechanics create narrative through their own definitions and their relation to the context and storytelling of the game. This model, still in an infant stage, shows potential, but still requires rigorous testing in several areas.

From Digressions to Intrusions: Authorial Commentary in the Novel

Abstract: "Be it known, then, that the human species are divided into two sorts of people, to wit, high people and low people." (146) --Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews (1742) "And so we need not trouble ourselves any more either about the insertions or about the exordiums. They both please me; the second class has pleased persons much better worth pleasing than I can pretend to be." (xx) --George Saintsbury, introduction to Joseph Andrews (1910) I would like to preface this article by asserting that there are two types of people in the world; those who like authorial intrusions, and those who don't. And just as these preferences tell us much about the people who hold them, the critical reception of authorial intrusions reveals much about our theories of the novel. Authorial intrusions are typically characterized, and criticized, as interruptions to a narrative that disrupt the illusion of fictional truth to varying degrees. In this way, intrusions highlight by contrast our sense of two formative elements of the genre: its narrative structure and its referential status. Gerard Genette (1997) tells us that the authorial preface is a paratextual frame in the service of ensuring that the text is read properly: explaining to readers why and how they should read it. I think we can profitably approach authorial commentary as an intratextual continuation of this rhetorical enterprise, and this is one reason why intrusions have been condemned. As a result we can also approach them as barometers for historical shifts in concepts of the novel because of the various ways they both evoke and respond to critical reception. My aim is to investigate the reasons why authorial commentary is considered intrusive, and whether these reasons have been constant throughout the history of the novel. Central to this investigation will be tracing the significance of a broad terminological shift, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, in which the common rhetorical practice of digression, or turning away from a narrative, came to be characterized as an intrusion into a narrative. Answering these questions will help address what Mary Jane Chilton Curry has called "the much disputed question of the relation between authorial intrusion and realism" (31), and I hope to demonstrate, in particular, the paradoxical role authorial commentary has played in both establishing and challenging the conventions of realist fiction in relation to eighteenth-century theories of probability, nineteenth-century theories of sympathy, and twentieth-century theories of impersonality. Authorial Intrusions and the Realist Novel When formalist theories of the novel took shape in the twentieth century, they enshrined all forms of intrusion, self-reflexive or otherwise, as an interference to the aesthetic ideal of the genre itself: the verisimilar effacement of the medium of narration, described by Percy Lubbock, in The Craft of Fiction (1921), as the practice of showing rather than telling. (1) This was also the central tenet of modernist novelists themselves, best expressed by Ford Madox Ford's assertion that it is "an obvious and unchanging fact that if an author intrudes his comments into the middle of his story he will endanger the illusion conveyed by that story" (148). The influence of this belief on historical scholarship can be found in Ian Watt's seminal work, The Rise of the Novel (1957), which defines "formal realism" as the narrative methods for providing an authentic report of individual experience that were developed in the eighteenth-century English novel. The prototype for authorial intrusions in this tradition is provided by Henry Fielding's essayistic musings in Tom Jones (1749), and according to Watt's theory of realism, "such authorial intrusions, of course, tend to diminish the authenticity of his narrative" and "break the spell of the imaginary world represented in the novel," preventing readers from being "fully immersed in the lives of the characters" (285). …

Primary Students Transgress Story World Boundaries in Their Multimodal Compositions.

Abstract: During a multifaceted classroom-based study, 22 7- and 8-year-old children had opportunities to develop their understanding of visual art and design elements and diverse narrative structures in picturebooks. The culminating activity of the case study research involved application and transformation of knowledge of the instructional foci as the students composed their own multimodal print texts. The data reported in this article feature an analysis of the narrative structures in the students’ multimodal compositions, focusing specifically on the forms of metalepsis, the purposeful disturbing or breaking of narrative boundaries, evident in their writing and artwork. Discussions of the relevant theoretical frameworks and literature are followed by descriptions of the research context and methods, and procedures employed for data analysis. Content analysis revealed how the students’ use of nine types of metalepsis in their verbal and/or visual texts resulted in the creation of complex narrative struct...

The relationship between posttraumatic stress symptoms and narrative structure among adolescent terrorist-attack survivors

Abstract: Background : The structure of trauma narratives is considered to be related to posttraumatic stress symptomatology and thus the capacity to make a coherent narrative after stressful events is crucial for mental health. Objective : The aim of this study is to understand more of the relationship between narrative structure and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). More specifically, we investigated whether internal and external focus, organization, fragmentation, and length differed between two groups of adolescent survivors of a mass shooting, one group with low levels of PTSS and one group with high levels of PTSS. Method : The sample comprised 30 adolescents who survived the shooting at Utoya Island in Norway in 2011. They were interviewed 4–5 months after the shooting and provided a free narrative of the event. PTSS were assessed using the UCLA Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index (PTSD-RI). Results : We found that survivors with high levels of PTSS described more external events and fewer internal events in their narratives compared with survivors with low levels of symptoms. The analysis also showed that especially narratives containing more descriptions of dialogue and fewer organized thoughts were related to higher levels of PTSS. The groups did not differ in levels of narrative fragmentation or in length of the narratives. Conclusion : Specific attributes of narrative structure proved to be related to the level of PTSS. On the basis of our results, we can recommend that practitioners focus especially on two elements of the trauma narratives, namely, the amount of external events, particularly dialogues, within the narrative and the number of organized thoughts. Participants with high levels of PTSS provided trauma narratives with low amount of organized (explanatory) thoughts accompanied by detailed descriptions of dialogues and actions, which is indicative for “here and now” quality of recall and a lack of trauma processing. Keywords: Posttraumatic stress symptoms; narrative organization; narrative fragmentation; internal events; external events (Published: 16 March 2016) Responsible Editor: Rita Rosner, KU Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, Germany. For the abstract or full text in other languages, please see Supplementary files in the column to the right (under ‘Article Tools’). Citation: European Journal of Psychotraumatology 2016, 7 : 29551 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v7.29551

Reproducing Rome: Motherhood in Virgil, Ovid, Seneca and Statius

Abstract: In the conservative and competitive society of ancient Rome, where the law of the father (patria potestas) was supposedly absolute, motherhood took on complex aesthetic, moral, and political meanings in elite literary discourse. Reproducing Rome is a study of the representation of maternity in the Roman literature of the first century CE, a period of intense social upheaval and reorganization as Rome was transformed from a Republic to a form of hereditary monarchy under the emperor Augustus. Through a series of close readings of works by Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, and Statius, the volume scrutinizes the gender dynamics that permeate these ancient authors' language, imagery, and narrative structures. Analysing these texts 'through and for the maternal', McAuley considers to what degree their representations of motherhood reflect, construct, or subvert Roman ideals of, and anxieties about, family, gender roles, and reproduction. The volume also explores the extent to which these representations distort or displace concerns about fatherhood or other relations of power in Augustan and post-Augustan Rome. Keeping the ancient literary and historical context in view, the volume conducts a dialogue between these ancient male authors and modern feminist theorists-from Klein to Irigaray, Kristeva to Cavarero-to consider the relationship between motherhood as symbol and how a maternal subjectivity is suggested, developed, or suppressed by the authors. Readers are encouraged to consider the problems and possibilities of reading the maternal in these ancient texts, and to explore the unique site the maternal occupies in pre-modern discourses underpinning Western culture.

Fragmentation, Intertextuality and Hyperreality: The Postmodern and Popular Filipino Films

Abstract: Watching popular films can help students take certain arguments in the theory of knowledge more seriously. Such claims bring to fore what the postmodernist critic Frederic Jameson (1998) refers to as the erosion of distinction between high culture (as represented by philosophy and the act of philosophizing) and popular culture (embodied by popular films) as when these products of mass culture are used as texts for philosophical and literary studies. The present study was designed to analyze popular Filipino films as text, in order to achieve the researcher’s aims: one is to prove that movies can truly be philosophic and literary, by highlighting the dominant features of postmodernist fiction discernible in the selected contemporary films, and how these features were related to the over-all narrative structure, characterization, and thematic content, and more importantly, to participate in the effacement of the line between high art and commercial art, demonstrating in the end that "le postmoderne" has finally reached the Philippines.

Modeling and representing dramatic situations as paradoxical structures

Abstract: The concept of dramatic situation is important in dramaturgy and narratology. In the domain of story generation and interactive digital storytelling, this concept is particularly powerful in creating meaningful story variations from a single core model. Nevertheless, dramatic situations and the related notion of deep narrative structures have been overlooked in the domain of computational models of narrative. This article presents a computational model of dramatic situations. Designed with creative authors in mind, the model consists of a small set of building blocks that, when assembled with specific relations, create narrative structures. Some structures that are described are of particular interest from a dramatic point of view, for they embed a fundamental paradox. These structures are generalized and formalized to allow an exhaustive search and to establish an initial list of dramatic situations that share this property.

Back to the future: postnarrativist historiography and analytic philosophy of history

Abstract: Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen has written an important book. It directly confronts a key theoretical dilemma that has shadowed debate in historiography for several decades: histories cannot be written without using some narrative structure or other, but epistemological evaluation cannot be applied to narratives qua narrative. Thus, if empirical inquiry takes the form of a history, then it cannot be rationally evaluable, and if rationally evaluable, empirical inquiry cannot be in the form of a history. Kuukkanen's book both directly confronts and proposes a strategy for surmounting this tired and tiresome theoretical barrier. Kuukkanen deserves great credit for attempting to reshape a long-stalled debate in a way that enables the theoretical options to be imagined anew. Yet his structuring of the oppositional tendencies engenders some ongoing problems regarding how to understand the philosophical stakes and options. This review argues that achieving Kuukkanen's postnarrativist future requires going back to past epistemic concerns discarded because they were tied to conceptions of logic and explanation that could not be reconciled with narrative form. Kuukkanen practices postnarrativism but still preaches a prenarrativist conception of logic. To reach his promised future, to actually overcome the dilemma that he rightly seeks to transcend, one must actually have the courage of Kuukkanen's pragmatist convictions.

Subaltern Experimental Writing: Dalit Literature in Dialogue with the World

Abstract: This essay analyses the experimental features of three contemporary novels produced by Dalits in relation to the way in which these novels address caste, national and international audiences. Bama’s novel Sangati (1994), Sharankumar Limbale’s novel Hindu (2003) and G. Kalyana Rao’s novel Untouchable Spring (2000) create fragmented, innovative and complex narrative structures that are experimental both in the way in which they try to reflect oral narrative structures in order to validate the unique communal legacy of Dalit culture and in the way in which they seek to produce narrative strategies that are radically new in order to evoke a world free from caste discrimination. The essay also explores the novels’ complex positioning of multiple readers and the distinctive features of the English translations. The three translations both re-code the texts for international consumption but at the same time try to keep the novels ‘strange’ to some extent; in the attempt to replicate the innovative features of these Dalit novels, the translations are emphatically experimental.

A Guided Tour of Literature Review:Facilitating Academic Paper Reading with Narrative Visualization

Abstract: Reading academic paper is a daily task for researchers and graduate students. However, reading effectively can be challenging, particularly for novices in scientific research. For example, when readers are reading the related work section that cites a fair number of references in limited page space, they often need to flip back and forth between the text and the references and may also frequently search elsewhere for more information about the references. This increases the difficulty of understanding a paper. In this paper, we propose a narrative visualization system that helps the reading of academic papers. As a first step, we adopt narrative visualization to present literature review as interactive slides. Specifically, we propose a narrative structure with three levels of granularities that the reader can drill down or roll up freely. The logic flow of a slideshow can be organized based on the paper's presentation or citations. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system through several case studies and user studies. The results show that the system allows users to quickly track and glance related work, making paper reading more effective and enjoyable.

Annotating Musical Theatre Plots on Narrative Structure and Emotional Content

Abstract: Although theoretical models of the structure of narrative arising from systematic analysis of corpora are available for domains such as Russian folk tales, there are no such sources for the plot lines of musical theatre. The present paper reports an effort of knowledge elicitation for features that characterise the narrative structure of plot in the particular domain of musical theatre. The following aspects are covered: identification of a valid vocabulary of abstract units to use in annotating musical theatre plots, development of a procedure for annotation - including a spread-sheet format for annotators to use, and a corresponding set of instructions to guide them through the process - selection of a corpus of musical theatre pieces that would constitute the corpus to be annotated, the annotation process itself and the results of post-processing the annotated corpus in search for insights on the narrative structure of musical theatre plots.

The English Martyr from Reformation to Revolution

Abstract: The English martyr from reformation to revolution By Alice Dailey Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012 Dailey's is the most recent contribution to a rich body of work on martyrdom and early modern literature. Building on Susannah Monta's cross-confessional approach to martyrology as a literary genre, Dailey extends some of her claims forward and backward in time by analyzing medieval hagiographies as well as texts produced later in the seventeenth century. This diachronic approach is reflected in Dailey's invitation to consider what happens "when an old genre encounters the new challenges of radical historical change" (6). Anchoring herself within the field of historical formalism, Dailey examines not only the plot elements and character types contained within martyrological narratives, but also the "organizing behavioral attributes" they valorize and deplore (10). The book is characterized by uncluttered prose and efficient chapters with helpful subheadings. Though Dailey is perhaps overly fond of words such as "rupture" and "fissure," the repetition of key terms makes related arguments visible as the reader traverses the broad range of texts she addresses. For all these reasons, and for its excellent summary of crucial theological concepts, this is the first book I recommend to undergraduates interested in learning about early modern English martyrdom. Just as she is transparent in articulating her debts to Monta and others, Dailey is deliberate about distinguishing her work from that of scholars less interested in martyrological narratives as literary constructions. For instance, she concisely delineates the limitations of Brad Gregory's otherwise important book, noting that it tends to treat "martyrology as a transparent record of early modern Christian belief" (5). (1) If Gregory's enthusiastic study of popular faith systems represents one potential extreme, Elaine Scarry's influential work on "the body in pain" represents the opposite end of the spectrum. (2) Her thoroughly secular insights, grounded in the experiences of Latin American dissidents, have at times been imported into discussions of early modern martyrdom. As Dailey points out, however, the forms of suffering Scarry describes as world-destroying are entirely antithetical to the martyr's experience, which uses transcendent stories to lend meaning and even beauty to horrifying violence (36). Dailey strikes an elegant balance between these two poles, retaining a healthy skepticism about the literal veracity of martyrological accounts without denigrating the power of the texts themselves. The English Martyr also clarifies what is at stake in the existing scholarly discourse by focusing on questions of legibility. Specifically, Dailey zeroes in on what Miri Rubin calls "martyr-making," reminding us that martyrdom is co-constituted "by victim and viewer, by historiographer and reader," and that the martyr's experience is only recognized as such if there is some correlation between the viewpoints of these various agents (94). Citing a famous phrase of Augustine's, she suggests that martyrdom "is neither merely cause nor death; it is a set of retrospective, narrative operations that depend on the legible rehearsal of martyr models" (100). In other words, early modern martyrologists used narrative tropes imported from medieval anthologies such as The Golden Legend in order to authenticate their own accounts. Equally important, these models were a part of every individual martyr's imagination, and so it is not accurate to say that they were simply imposed upon the events of the martyr's torture and execution after the fact. It is here that the book, which otherwise relies on careful historical research and close readings rather than on critical theory, reaches for some additional vocabulary to buttress its claims. Referencing Pierre Bourdieu's concept of the habitus, Dailey clarifies that the martyr paradigm is more than a set of formal narrative structures; it reflects an embodied knowledge that, for early modern Christians, was a thoroughly naturalized part of their worldview. …