Showing papers on "Narratology published in 2005"

Making Sense of Motherhood: A Narrative Approach

Abstract: Becoming a mother changes lives in many ways and this original and accessible 2005 book explores how women try to make sense of, and narrate their experiences of first-time motherhood in the Western world. Tina Miller pays close attention to women's own accounts, over time, of their experiences of transition to motherhood and shows how myths of motherhood continue because women do not feel able to voice their early (often difficult) experiences of mothering. The book charts the social, cultural and moral contours of contemporary motherhood and engages with sociological and feminist debates on how selves are constituted, maintained and narrated. Drawing on original research and narrative theory, the book also explores the disjuncture that often exists between personal experience and public discourse and the cultural dimensions of expert knowledge.

A companion to narrative theory

Abstract: • Comprises 35 original essays written by leading figures in the field • Includes contributions from pioneers in the field such as Wayne C. Booth, Seymour Chatman, J. Hillis Miller and Gerald Prince • Represents all the major critical approaches to narrative and investigates and debates the relations between them • Considers narratives in different disciplines, such as law and medicine • Features analyses of a variety of media, including film, music, and painting • Designed to be of interest to specialists, yet accessible to readers with little prior knowledge of the field

Discourse Analysis and Narrative

Abstract: Handbook of discourse analysis, 635-649.

Narrative Medicine: Attention, Representation, Affiliation

Abstract: Sick persons and those who care for them become obligatory story-tellers and story-listeners. Hippocrates knew this, Chekhov knew this, Freud knew this, and yet knowledge of the centrality of storytelling was obscured in medicine throughout much of the last century. With the rise of interest in the humanities in general and lit erary studies in particular among medical educators and practitioners, today's medi cine is being fortified by a rigorous understanding of narrative theory, appreciation of narrative practice, and deepening respect for what great literary texts can con tribute to the professional development of physicians and the care of the individual patient (Hawkins and McEntyre; Anderson and MacCurdy). This rise of the power of storytelling in medicine helps me to conceptualize what has been evolving in my own practice of internal medicine and in the emerging field of narrative medicine. You'd think that doctors, nurses, and social workers know of the centrality and privilege of storytelling in their practice. What else do we think we are doing when we ask someone in pain about their situation? Even the junior medical student who says, "What brought you to the clinic today?" and is met with the answer, "The M104 bus" knows that he or she is in search of a story. And yet, there has been an odd diminishment of the status of storytelling in medicine ever since we decided we knew enough about the body by virtue of reducing it to its parts that we did not need to hear out its inhabitant.

Narratology, cultural psychology, and counseling research.

Abstract: Narratological research is defined in relation to narrative theory and a cultural psychology perspective. Narrative concepts and methodology are explained, including the configural mode of understanding and principles of narrative analysis. Examples of application in psychological and counseling research are presented, with a discussion of issues of validity and voice. Suggestions are made on how narrative studies are to be evaluated. It is concluded that narratological research, with its focus on meanings and the storied nature of human life, can be especially useful in discovery research on identity development and the experience of counseling and life transitions.

Narratives, Health, and Healing: Communication Theory, Research, and Practice

Abstract: Contents: A.W. Frank, Foreword. Preface. Part I: Overview of Narrative and Health Communication Theorizing. P.M. Japp, L.M. Harter, C.S. Beck, Introduction. L.M. Harter, P.M. Japp, C.S. Beck, Vital Problematics of Narrative Theorizing About Health and Healing. A.S. Babrow, K.N. Kline, W.K. Rawlins, Narrating Problems and Problematizing Narratives: Linking Problematic Integration and Narrative Theory in Telling Stories About Our Health. Part II: Personal Narratives and Public Dialogues. P.M. Japp, Introduction. C.S. Beck, Becoming the Story: Narratives as Collaborative, Social Enactments of Individual, Relational, and Public Identities. L.M. Harter, E.L. Kirby, A. Edwards, A. McClanahan, Time, Technology, and Meritocracy: The Disciplining of Women's Bodies in Narrative Constructions of Age-Related Infertility. P.M. Japp, D.K. Japp, Desperately Seeking Legitimacy: Narratives of a Bio-Medically Invisible Disease. T. Workman, Death as the Representative Anecdote in the Construction of Collegiate "Binge Drinking" Problem. T. Carabas, L.M. Harter, State-Induced Illness and Forbidden Stories: The Role of Storytelling in Healing Individual and Social Traumas in Romania. A. Singhal, K. Chitnis, A. Sengupta, Cross-Border Mass-Mediated Health Narratives: Narrative Transparency, "Safe Sex," and Indian Viewers. Part III: Narrating and Organizing Health Care Events and Resources. L.M. Harter, Introduction. W.K. Rawlins, Our Family's Physician. J. Morgan-Witte, Narrative Knowledge Development Among Caregivers: Stories From the Nurse's Station. Sunwolf, L.R. Frey, L. Keranen, Rx Story Prescriptions: Healing Effects of Storytelling and Storylistening in the Practice of Medicine. S.L. Ragan, T. Mindt, E. Wittenberg-Lyles, Narrative Medicine and Education in Palliative Care. P.M. Buzzanell, L.L. Ellingson, Contesting Narratives of Workplace Maternity. M.Z. Miller, P.G. Martin, K.C. Beatty, Wholeness in a Breaking World: Narratives as Sustenance for Peace. Part IV: Narrative Sense-Making About Self and Other. C.S. Beck, Introduction. B.F. Sharf, How I Fired My Surgeon and Embraced an Alternate Narrative. W.A. Beach, J. Mandelbaum, "My Mom Had a Stroke": Understanding How Patients Raise and Providers Respond to Psychosocial Concerns. M.P. Keeley, J.K. Kellas, Constructing Life and Death Through Final Conversation Narratives. C. Bosticco, T.L. Thompson, An Examination of the Role of Narratives and Storytelling in Bereavement. D. O'Hair, D. Scannell, S. Thompson, Agency Through Narrative: Patients Managing Cancer Care in a Challenging Environment. C.S. Beck, L.M. Harter, P.M. Japp, Afterword: Continuing the Conversation: Reflections on Our Emergent Scholarly Narratives.

Dislocations/ Relocations: Narratives of Displacement

Abstract: The centrality of narrative analysis in the investigation of social processes and practices has become an established fact in the human sciences. The focus on narrative and displacement in this volume provides a starting point for a reflection on current issues in narrative theory as well as a timely interrogation of the role of narrative in illuminating social phenomena that are central to modernity such as migration and displacement. At the centre of the analyses presented in the book are stories that are ignored, silenced and othered by contemporary public discourses on displacement, migration and settlement. Drawing on insights from narrative theory, linguistic ethnography, sociolinguistics and cultural studies, contributors to the volume examine both how migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and marginalized minorities position themselves through narrative practices and how they are positioned in institutional and official narratives.

Narrative and Media

Abstract: Figures and tables List of contributors Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: the power of narrative Helen Fulton Part I. The Basics of Narrative Theory: 2. Narrative concepts Rosemary Huisman 3. From structuralism to post-structuralism Rosemary Huisman Part II. Film as Narrative and Visual Mode: 4. Stories and plots Julian Murphet 5. Narrative time Julian Murphet 6. Narrative voice Julian Murphet 7. Point of view Julian Murphet 8. Novel to film Helen Fulton 9. Film narrative and visual cohesion Helen Fulton Part III. Television: Narratives and Ideology: 10. The genres of television Anne Dunn 11. Television news as narrative Anne Dunn 12. Aspects of narrative in series and serials Rosemary Huisman 13. Soap-operas and sit-coms Rosemary Huisman Part IV. Radio and Print Journalism: 14. Structures of radio drama Anne Dunn 15. Radio news and interviews Anne Dunn 16. Print news as narrative Helen Fulton 17. Analysing the discourse of news Helen Fulton Part V. Popular Print Culture: 18. Magazine genres Rosemary Huisman 19. Advertising narratives Rosemary Huisman 20. Conclusion: postmodern narrative and media Helen Fulton Glossary Bibliography Index.

Theory Wars: An Argument Against Arguments in the so-called Ludology/Narratology Debate

Abstract: Introduction This paper offers an alternative to the agonistic debate presented by Gonzalo Frasca in "Ludologists Love Stories Too," in Level Up, DiGRA 2003 Conference Proceedings (Frasca, 2003) While Frasca's position is that the ludology/narratology debate is spurious and fraught with misunderstandings, his paper simultaneously succeeds in deepening the gap by further polarizing the alleged two sides of a debate that, in Frasca's words, "never took place" Furthermore, the paper adds to the misunderstandings by further mis-labeling, mis-quoting and decontextualizing some of the points made by others In this paper, I argue that there is little value in polarizing scholars into two "camps," even if one is doing so in an attempt to bridge the gap As some of the scholars quoted by Frasca (some of whom I will refer to here) have pointed out, the argument is neither interesting nor productive It begins to sound more like a theological argument than a deep form of discourse—somewhat like saying "communists love capitalism too" The very act of bestowing the suffix "-ist" is a kind of spell-casting exercise that only serves to reinforce the so-called false polarity that Frasca attempts to critique And in fact, I am certain that a number of scholars who have been been grouped into the referenced camps—myself among them—would prefer not to be classified in either camp, but be allowed to move freely across the spectrum if ideas that lie between play and narrative without being forced to take a "position" on either end

Introduction: Towards a Narratology of TV Series

Abstract: As ‘the principal storyteller in contemporary American society’ (Kozloff 1992: 67) — as well as in many other contemporary societies — television is replete with narrative forms and genres. It is not only ‘the sitcom, the action series, the cartoon, the soap opera, the miniseries, the made-for-TV movie’ (ibid.: 68) that clearly show narrative traits. Even types of programmes which appear to be far less likely as narratives — such as advertisements, music videos or nature documentaries — often tell a story, though these stories admittedly vary considerably in terms of how elaborate they are: A commercial for pain relievers may rely on comparison and argument, or an ad for a car may be abstract and descriptive, but a vast number of advertisements offer a compressed narrative exemplifying the products’ beneficial effects. Music videos often enact the storyline of the song’s lyrics. Nature documentaries tend to follow the story of the animal’s life cycle or of the seasonal progression in a geographical area. (Ibid.: 68–9)

Stand up and take your place: identifying narrative elements in narrative adventure and role-play games

Abstract: This article reports results from a series of empirical studies exploring narrative dimensions of adventure and role-play in computer-game design. It identifies aspects of narrative employed in such games, considers the significance of narrative structures and devices in increasing user-engagement, and reflects on game-design implications.Because not all approaches identified in traditional narrative theory can be applied to the new, interactive media, a phenomenological, reader-response methodology was used in the studies to identify narrative considerations appropriate to game-players' experiences. In two model focus-group studies, evaluative responses to games played in a controlled environment were analyzed. From the factors identified as affecting engagement, those with narrative aspects were isolated and their significance assessed. Among the factors identified are characterization, identification, agency, motivation, plot, linearity, and authorial control. Also considered is the disruption of primal narrative features of narrative--causality, temporality, and linearity--within a hyper-structure, and a number of design techniques and strategies to resolve such tensions and promote user engagement are suggested.

Narratology beyond literary criticism : mediality, disciplinarity

Abstract: This anthology presents the results of the Second International Colloquium of the Narratology Research Group (Hamburg University). It engages in the exploration of approaches that broaden Narratology's realm. The contributions illustrate the transcendence of traditional models common to Narratology. They also reflect on the relevance of such a 'going beyond' as seen in more general terms: What interrelation can be observed between re-definition of object domain and re-definition of method? What potential interfaces with other methods and disciplines does the proposed innovation offer? Finally, what are the repercussions of the proposed innovation in terms of Narratology's self-definition? The innovative volume facilitates the inter-methodological debate between Narratology and other disciplines, enabling the conceptualization of a Narratology beyond traditional Literary Criticism.

Intermental Thought in the Novel: The Middlemarch Mind

Abstract: Introduction This essay is about intermental thought in the novel. Such thinking is joint, group, shared, or collective, as opposed to intramental, individual, or private thought. It is also known as socially distributed, situated, or extended cognition, and as intersubjectivity. It is a crucially important component of fictional narrative because much of the mental functioning that occurs in novels is done by large organizations, small groups, work colleagues, friends, families, couples, and other intermental units. Notable examples include the army in Evelyn Waugh's Men at Arms; the town in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"; the group of friends in Donna Tartt's The Secret History; the villainous Marchioness de Merteuil and the Viscount de Valmont in Laclos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses; and Kitty and Levin in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, who, in a famous scene, write out only the initial letters of the words that they wish to use but who nevertheless understand each other perfectly. It could plausibly be argued that a large amount of the subject matter of novels is the formation, development, and breakdown of these intermental systems. However, this aspect of narrative has been neglected by traditional theoretical approaches such as focalization, characterization, story analysis, and the representation of speech and thought. One of the most important characters in George Eliot's Middlemarch is the town of Middlemarch itself. I call the intermental functioning of the inhabitants of the town the Middlemarch mind. I go much further than simply suggesting that the town of Middlemarch provides a social context within which individual characters operate; indeed, I argue that the town literally and not just metaphorically has a mind of its own. The Middlemarch mind is complex, interesting, clearly visible to a close reader of the text, and vitally important to an understanding of the novel because it explains a good deal of the motivation behind the actions of the other main characters. It is, however, invisible to traditional narrative approaches. After introducing the concept of intermental thought, I discuss the construction of the Middlemarch mind in the opening few pages of the novel. I attempt to show that the beginning of the novel is saturated with the Middlemarch mind and that the initial descriptions by the narrator of the three individual minds of Dorothea, Celia, and Mr. Brooke are focalized through it. After trying to anticipate possible objections to the idea of intermental functioning in fictional narrative, I finish with a few general comments on cognitive approaches to literature. The background to my argument is as follows. Narratology is concerned, in part, with the study of the mental functioning of the characters who inhabit the storyworlds created by fictional narratives. It addresses the question of how, when reading a novel, we construct from the words in the text an awareness of the mental functioning of the characters in that novel. Readers enter the storyworlds of novels and then follow the logic of the events that occur in them primarily by attempting to reconstruct the fictional minds of the characters in that storyworld. Otherwise, readers lose the plot. These constructions of the minds of fictional characters by narrators and readers are central to our understanding of how novels work, because fictional narrative is, in essence, the presentation of fictional mental functioning. It is not possible to follow the plot of Middlemarch without following the thought processes of Lydgate, Dorothea, Rosamond, and the other characters in the novel. In fact, the plot consists of those thought processes (for more on this, see Palmer). You may be feeling some doubt about the claim that intermental thought has been neglected. Surely we have always known about the importance of groups right from the very beginning of Western literature, for example the role of the chorus in Greek tragedy'? …

Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric

Abstract: Eva MULLER-ZETTELMANN and Margarete RUBIK: Introduction Defining the Lyric Werner WOLF: The Lyric: Problems of Definition and a Proposal for Reconceptualisation Sabine COELSCH-FOISNER: The Mental Context of Poetry: From Philosophical Concepts of Self to a Model of Poetic Consciousness (Ethos - Mode - Voice) Angelica MICHELIS: Eat My Words: Poetry as Transgression Narratology and Beyond Monika FLUDERNIK: Allegory, Metaphor, Scene and Expression The Example of English Medieval and Early Modern Lyric Poetry Eva MULLER-ZETTELMANN: "A Frenzied Oscillation": Auto-Reflexivity in the Lyric Peter Huhn Plotting the Lyric: Forms of Narration in Poetry Wolfgang G MULLER: The Lyric Insertion in Fiction and Drama: Theory and Practice Margarete RUBIK: In Deep Waters Or: What's the Difference between Drowning in Poetry and in Prose? Manfred PFISTER: "As an unperfect actor on the stage": Notes Towards a Definition of Performance and Performativity in Shakespeare's Sonnets Max NANNY: Diagrammatic Iconicity in Poetry Mapping (Post) Modern Poetry Peter V ZIMA: Inhuman Aesthetics From Poe, Mallarme and Valery to Adorno and Lyotard Pilar ABAD-GARCIA: Generic Description and the Postmodern Lyric Discourse/Mode: Carol Ann Duffy's "Anne Hathaway" Brian MCHALE: Poetry under Erasure Norbert BACHLEITNER: The Virtual Muse Forms and Theory of Digital Poetry Constructing Group Identity Michael METZELTIN: Courtship Rituals as Paradigmatic Forms of Poetry A textual and anthropological perspective Eva MULLER-ZETTELMANN: Poetry, Cultural Memory and the English Lyric Tradition Notes on Contributors

The Narratological Analysis of Lyric Poetry: Studies in English Poetry from the 16th to the 20th Century

Abstract: This study offers a fresh approach to the theory and practice of poetry criticism from a narratological perspective. Arguing that lyric poems share basic constituents with narrative fiction, the authors utilize the advanced techniques of narratology to invigorate the field of poetic theory and methodology while demonstrating the fruitfulness of this approach by detailed analyses of canonical English poems.

Interventional narratology: form and function of the narrative medical write-up.

Abstract: The narrative medical write-up is a nontraditional patient work-up in which medical students narrate a patient's story. The purpose of the assignment is to help students gain skills necessary for "narrative competence," the ability to understand and act according to the larger narrative of a patient's life. More than a simple, empathetic retelling, the narrative medical write-up is a re-creation of the patient's story in which the student is both listener and teller, entering into a collaborative effort with the patient. This essay approaches the write-up from a narratological perspective, examining the complexities of plot construction, authorship, and fictionality within the write-up that make the work both difficult to define and truly powerful within medical education.

The case for the narrative brain

Abstract: Narrative is important for interactive systems because humans have narrative brains In this paper, reviewing the case for the narrative brain from various fields of psychology and narrative theory, three themes emerge The first theme is that there is a species-wide predisposition for and capability for narrative The second is that since, at an individual level, humans don't all develop the same level of narrative inclination or ability, individual narrative tendencies will be significant in causing the individual responses to an interactive system to vary considerably The third theme is that there is a case for a set of species-wide archetypal narrative scripts embedded in the human psyche Each of these narrative themes is presented and explored in terms of it's relevance to understanding users' experience of narrative in interactive systems The paper goes on to describe a methodology for evaluating a user's experience of narrative by first evaluating the user's narrative tendencies

Narrative means to humanistic ends.

Abstract: Background: Efforts to "rehumanize" medical education through curriculum reform and program development have been numerous and ongoing in recent years. One particularly intriguing contribution has come from the area of narrative studies. It is now common to use literature in general, and physician-patient narratives in particular, both to expand students' understanding of the clinical encounter and to sensitize them to the humanistic aspects of medicine. Description: In this article, we describe the process by which we have introduced key insights from and elements of narrative theory into our 1st-year clinical skills program. Rather than limiting our efforts to the use of literature and to the description of individual narrative encounters, however, we have framed our entire course as an exercise in narrative construction. We refer to this process as "narrative structuring." Evaluation: A combination of short essays on topics related to the various literary materials utilized in the course, written repor...

Narrative Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Narratology

Abstract: Daniel Punday. Narrative Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Narratology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. x + 234 pp. $65.00 cloth. One cannot read Daniel Punday's Narrative Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Narratology without a degree of envy. As the dust jacket states, "[T]He study of narrative has almost entirely ignored human corporeality." With this assertion, Punday launches an exhaustive survey that demonstrates his knowledge of the fields and currents that comprise narrative theory. With supporting references to (among many others) psychoanalytic and sociological theory, Mikhail Bakhtin and Michel Foucault, Dante and Woolf narrative theory is presented as informed by a very intimate relationship with corporeality-perhaps so intimate that this connection has until now failed to be adequately explored. Given the extensiveness of his research, it is natural that Punday eventually writes, "If narratology has traditionally sought universal principles and modes for narrative, then the kind of historical context that I have drawn on so frequently makes this project inevitably hybrid. The question at end of this book, then, must surely be whether this is productive or disabling hybridity" (185). Situated within the conclusion of his text, this passage resonates as the reader attempts to determine what the answer to that question actually is. Chapter 1, "Conceiving Narrative Modern Narrative," explores the relationship of early human reproductive theory and ideas of embryology to the manner in which we speak and understand the "worlds" created within narratives. Rather than accepting the fictional world of narrative as logical and unquestionably true to the text, Punday concludes that this possible world is not static and existing solely within the pages, so much as it functions as a nexus within which other possible worlds become recognizably coexistent. This idea of transworld identity thus conflicts with traditional narrative theory that contends that the actions of a character are fully determined. With references to Saul Kripke's theory on naming and its relationship to identity, Steven Spielberg's Back to the Future (1983), Shelley's Frankenstein, Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto," the Human Genome Project, and William Burrough's Cities of the Red Night, Punday asserts that characters become increasingly informed by other forces that compromise our belief in the nature of a fictional world as completely enclosed. Entitled "Sorted and General Character Bodies," chapter 2 supposes that "[i]f character bodies are the basic building blocks of narrative events, and if those bodies in turn help to define the reader's position in relation to the text, then narrative is always necessarily concerned with its own hermeneutic conditions" (82). To prove this, Punday emphasizes character traits as functionally reliant upon contrast, setting the stage for a discussion of the distinctions between the sorted body-the character who is a distinct object operating within a system of established traits that are contrasted with those of other characters-and the general body that not only mediates between other characters in the story but also allows the reader an access point and understanding of the text's subject matter in its interpretive implications. An analysis of Sethe from Toni Morrison's Beloved then functions as a complex example of both types of bodies and provides an opportunity for Punday to introduce the role of perception via sight and touch. Given the physicality of touch and its attendant intimate relationship to corporeality both among the characters in the story and in the reader's own experience with this particular mode of perception, a corporeal atmosphere develops within the text by which the embodied reader can identify. With such emphasis on tactility, Gabriel Josipovici's Touch (1996) comes to mind as wonderfully poetic supplemental material to Punday's chapter. Chapter 3, "Plot and the Unruly Body," examines the traditional belief that the narrating act is a means of ordering experience, of organizing the temporal. …

Writing Medieval History

Abstract: Introduction: the post-traditional Middle Ages in a postmodern age 1. The self among others: locating the social self 2. The speaking self: biography/autobiography 3. The hidden self: psychoanalysis and the textual unconscience 4. Literary criticism and the evidence for history 5. Narrative theory: implications for early annals and chronicles 6. Narrative theory: functions of fiction in historical writing 7. Sex and its medieval history 8. Gender: the 'feminine' and medieval society 9. Gender: masculinity in medieval forms

How Stylisticians Draw on Narratology: Approaches, Advantages and Disadvantages

Abstract: Although modern stylistics has a relatively longer history than narratology, the two disciplines have been enjoying a quite parallel development for the past few decades, with Britain and the United States forming the international centers of stylistics and narratology respectively since the 1990s. While (classical and postclassical) narratologists in general have not paid much attention to stylistics, an increasing number of stylisticians have made various attempts to draw on narratology since the 1990s, especially since the beginning of this century. This essay offers a classification and analysis of different approaches stylisticians have taken in drawing upon narratology, shedding light on the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. And based on the analysis, the present study also offers suggestions for future studies. Superficial Similarity and Essential Difference On the surface, there seems to be no need for stylistics to draw on narratology. The traditional stylistic distinction between content and style is one between what-one-has-to-say and how-one-says-it (Leech and Short 38); similarly, the narratological distinction between story and discourse is one between what-is-told and how-it's-transmitted (Chatman 9; see also Shen "Narrative," "Defense and Challenge"). The two distinctions seem to match perfectly with each other. In her influential Dictionary of Stylistics, Katie Wales defines style as "a CHOICE of form ('manner') to express content ('matter')" (158), while Gerard Genette, in his influential Narrative Discourse, defines discourse as "the signifier, statement, discourse of narrative text itself" (27). Style and discourse, that is to say, appear to be more or less interchangeable concepts, each covering fully the level of presentation in verbal narratives. Such an impression may be deepened by the following definitions given by Michael Toolan in his Language in Literature: An Introduction to Stylistics (1998) and Narrative: A Critical Linguistic Introduction (2001): Stylistics is the study of the language in literature. (Language viii, his emphasis) Stylistics is crucially concerned with excellence of technique. (Language ix) ... sjuzhet or [narratology's] discours roughly denotes all the techniques that authors bring to bear in their varying manner of presentation of the basic story. (Narrative 11) From these definitions, we may derive the following equation: Style = Language = Technique = Discourse Such an equation may also be found in the following comment by the British stylistician Roger Fowler on the relation between the concerns of stylistics and narratology: "The French distinguish two levels of literary structure, which they call histoire [story] and discours [discourse], story and language. Story (or plot) and the other abstract elements of novel structure may be discussed in terms of categories given by the analogy of linguistic theory, but the direct concern of linguistics is surely with the study of discours" (xi). But, in effect, the discours (discourse) in French narratology is to a large extent different from the language or style in stylistics. There is an implicit boundary separating the two, with a limited amount of overlap in between. To see things in perspective, let's compare the following two observations made by Toolan in his Language in Literature and Narrative respectively: 1. So one of the crucial things attempted by Stylistics is to put the discussion of textual effects and techniques on a public, shared, footing.... The other chief feature of Stylistics is that it persists in the attempt to understand technique, or the craft of writing. If we agree that Hemingway's short story 'Indian Camp', and Yeats's poem 'Sailing to Byzantium', are both extraordinary literary achievements, what are some of the linguistic components of that excellence? Why these word-choices, clause-patterns, rhythms, and intonations, contextual implications [of conversation], cohesive links [among sentences], choices of voice and perspective and transitivity [of clause structure], etc. …

Essays in Aesthetics

Abstract: Over the course of the past forty years, Gerard Genette's work has profoundly influenced scholars of narratology, poetics, aesthetics, and literary and cultural criticism, and he continues to be one of France's most influential theorists. The eighteen pieces in Essays in Aesthetics are of international interest because they are concerned either with universal aesthetic problems (the receiver's relationship to an aesthetic object, abstract art, the role of repetition in aesthetics, genre theory, and the rapport between literature and music) or with specific moments in the work of a well-known writer or artist (such as Stendhal, Proust, Manet, Pissarro, and Canaletto). Essays in Aesthetics contains a wealth of material related to the appreciation of beauty by one of the subtlest and most original minds working in aesthetics today. Genette knows the fine arts as well as he knows literature and as a result has innovative things to say to readers in that field as well as to philosophers and literary scholars.

Voicing back: the poetics and politics of ping chong's ethno- historiographic fables

Abstract: In spite of Ping Chongi¯s reputation in the American theatre scene, little has been done to explore his artistic works from a fully theorized perspective. In this dissertation, I propose a category of i°cultural narrative textsi± to investigate cultural and historical themes of i°culture and the otheri± in Chongi¯s fascinating ethno-historiographic fables. The poetics and politics of Chongi¯s narrative texts are the subject of this dissertation. The frames of myth and narratology in their constructive aspects (how the mythic narratives are expressed) provide the poetics part. I adopt the literary approaches of Northrop Frye and Kenneth Burke for their intense studies on image (narrative unit), rhetoric (narrative signification), and emplotment (narrative sequence). In a connective linkage from poetics, the politics part engages the cultural and historical thematics through which I read what is expressed in Chongi¯s (counter-) myths on people, cultures, and histories. For this complex thematic part, I construe a theoretical bricolage of a broad range of disciplines and methodologies, from psychoanalysis, cognitive science, anthropology, historiography, sociology, to poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and feminism.This dissertation deals with Chongi¯s ethno-historiographic fables throughout his theatrical career over three decades, examining how his deconstructive myth-making wrestles with the problematic notion of i°the otheri± in both local (national) and global aspects. Borrowing Julia Kristevai¯s socially informed psychoanalysis, I approach Chongi¯s concept of i°the otheri± as i°social abjecti± inhibiting at the margins. I argue that through Chongi¯s (counter-) myth-making which destabilizes the authority of hegemonic narratives of the incompatible split between the self and the other, multiple voices of the marginalized return, and the monologue of the hegemonic culture is interrupted. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how the performance of Chongi¯s (counter-) narratives, what I call i°voicing back,i± resist the silence, enabling the marginalized abject to become the subjects of their own desires and histories. This i°voicing backi± in its shared political languages of respect, equality, and justice (toward the others) prepares for the performance of a democracy which is based on the complete modes of speech acts, speaking and listening.

Story-lines: a case study of online learning using narrative analysis

Abstract: Narrative analysis has both research and pedagogical advantages for use in CSCL. Narrative theory provides multidisciplinary perspectives and methods from diverse fields. Stories are a way of thinking, making meaning, and showing constructivism in action. This paper discusses the advantages of narrative analysis for interpreting online discourse; presents features, methodological challenges, and procedures; and presents some findings from a case study of online learning. Narrative analysis uses both text and online "talk" to construct a holistic view of the learning experience involving cognition, affect, and interaction.

Narrative as a Form of Knowledge Transfer: Narrative Theory and Semantics

Abstract: This paper presents a theoretical discussion of semantically enabled technologies that adopt narrative theories to aid knowledge transfer. The paper aims to present the applicability of existing narrative theories as methods of transferring and retrieving knowledge, underlying the importance of semantic mark-up.

Managing a non-linear scenario – a narrative evolution

Abstract: This paper examines the causes and consequences of the narrative paradox phenomenon widely observed in VR. We present an alternative approach to virtual and interactive storytelling in the form of the emergent narrative concept, together with an implementation of a subset of these ideas in the FearNot! demonstrator.

Towards a stylistic typology of narrative gaps: knowledge gapping in Flannery O’Connor’s fiction:

Abstract: This article examines the functions of narrative gaps in the creation and manipulation of knowledge in Flannery O’Connor’s fiction. A distinction is first made between the announced and the unannounced gap, the latter being the general type that occurs most frequently in modern fiction, including that of O’Connor. The form and functions of the announced gap are briefly discussed with reference to 18th-century narratives. The article demonstrates the presence of an attenuated announced gap in O’Connor’s fiction in the use of the indefinite pronoun something. It also makes distinctions between the narrative gap, the ellipsis, and general narrative indeterminacy. The attenuated announced gap and the unannounced gap help to produce involvement of the reader in creating the emotional, spiritual, and rational background for an O’Connor narration. These narrative gaps are stylistically indicative of O’Connor’s prose from her earliest to her latest fiction, both in the particular forms that they take and in their...