Showing papers on "Narratology published in 2014"

The Experientiality of Narrative: An Enactivist Approach

Abstract: How do readers experience literary narrative? Drawing on narrative theory, cognitive science, and the philosophy of mind, this book offers a principled account of the dynamics underlying readers' responses to narrative Through its interdisciplinary approach, this study combines close readings of literary texts and theoretical discussion in ways that shed light on the deep connection between narrative, literary fiction, and human experience

When Narrative Brands End: The Impact of Narrative Closure and Consumption Sociality on Loss Accommodation

Abstract: This research emically documents consumers' experience of the end of a favorite television series. Anchored in the domain of evolving narrative brands, of which TV series are an archetypal example, this work draws from narrative theory, brand relationship theory, and basic research on interpersonal loss to document the processes of loss accommodation. The authors triangulate across data sources and methods (extended participant observation, long interview, and online forum analysis) to unfold the processes of loss accommodation triggered by brand discontinuation. Accommodation processes and postwithdrawal relationship trajectories depend upon the nature and closural force of the narrative inherent to the brand but also the sociality that surrounds its consumption. Consumption sociality allows access to transitive and connective resources that facilitate the processes of accommodation during critical junctures in consumer-brand relationships.

Arla and Danish national identity – business history as cultural history

Abstract: Through a study of the co-operatively organised dairy company Arla the article argues that the influence of co-operative societies in Denmark goes far beyond the economic sphere. Since the founding of the co-operative movement in the late nineteenth century it has been viewed as a unique Danish way into modernity that is more democratic than the traditional process of industrialisation seen in other European countries. Thus the narrative of the co-operatives has become part of Danish memory and identity. In the post-war years, however, and especially in the last two decades, the process of globalisation in the food industry has eroded the foundation of this narrative from within, such that it has begun to turn against the co-operative societies. Accused of being monopolistic, multinational and undemocratic, the companies today find themselves trapped in their own history and storytelling. The article draws on a cultural-historical framework, narrative theory and Pierre Nora's notion of memory.

Translation as Re-narration

Abstract: This chapter offers an overview of narrative theory as it has been applied in the field of Translation Studies. It starts by outlining the theoretical assumptions that underpin the narrative approach, and then explains and exemplifies two sets of conceptual tools used in the analysis of translation and interpreting events from a narrative perspective. The first set consists of a narrative typology (personal, public, conceptual and meta narratives). The second set consists of features that account for the way in which narratives are configured: selective appropriation, temporality, relationality, causal emplotment, genericness, particularity, normativeness and narrative accrual. The chapter concludes with a narrative analysis of a subtitled political commercial that demonstrates some of the strengths of the narrative framework.

Writing (hi)story : Gascony in Jean Froissart's chroniques

Abstract: Jean Froissart’s Chroniques , composed of four Books, relate the first stages of the Anglo-French conflict later known as the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453). This thesis explores Froissart’s textual journey(s) to Gascon lands (south-west of modern-day France) and history/stories. Relying on Gerard Genette’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s narrative theories, it uses literary and narratological tools to analyse three passages from Book I and III concerned with Gascony: the Earl of Derby’s Gascon campaigns (Chapter 1); the Black Prince’s Gascon campaigns and the principality of Aquitaine (Chapter 2); Froissart’s personal journey to and stay at the court of Gaston Febus, count of Foix-Bearn (Chapter 3). One aim of the study is to investigate the representation of the region but it also argues that the Gascon passages have wider implications for the Chroniques , Froissart’s work as a whole, and the writing of history in the fourteenth century. At the turn of the twentieth century, Froissart’s ‘history’ was often disparagingly discussed by scholars due to factual inaccuracy and literary embellishments: such a ‘historical narrative’, it was felt, fell short of history and was nothing more than an entertaining story presenting outdated chivalric ideals. Although this approach has been partly revised, some critics still view the Chroniques’ earlier Books as being a narratively straightforward reflection of such a chivalric ideology, lacking critical hindsight on fourteenth-century events and society, and thus presenting paradoxical and irreconcilable tensions with later Books to the extent that they are occasionally deemed to be an entirely different kind of work than their later counterparts. The narrative thread of Froissart’s Gascon (hi)story explored here allows the revision of such views and shows that Froissart’s narrative is far from narratively and ideologically straightforward. This complexity is present as early as the first versions of the Book I, which should be envisaged in parallel, not in opposition, with the ‘later’ Chroniques . Similarly, the various tensions (e.g. fiction/history; ideal/real) underpinning the whole work, manifested in the portrayal of Gascony/the Gascons, are best approached in terms of co-existence, not antagonism. Such a multi-faceted work (a mirror and/or product of the fourteenth century?), a mi-chemin between history and fiction, between conflicting yet co-existing perspectives, is precisely what makes Froissart’s Chroniques valuable to literary critics, philologists, and historians alike.

Anxieties of communication: the limits of narrative in the medical humanities

Abstract: This paper aims to provide an initial response to Angela Woods’s endeavour to ‘(re)ignite critical debates around this topic’ in her recent essay ‘The limits of narrative: provocations for the medical humanities’ (Medical Humanities 2011). Woods’s essay challenges the validity of the notion of the narrative self through her discussion and use of Galen Strawson’s seminal ‘Against narrativity’ (2004). To some extent in dialogue with Woods, this article will examine three exploratory concepts connected with the topic. First, it will explore ways in which we might seek to re-place narrative at the centre of the philosophy of good medicine and medical practice by reassessing the role of the narratee in the narrative process. Second, it will reconsider the three alternative forms of expression Woods puts forward as non-narrative —metaphor, phenomenology and photography—as narrative. Finally, and connected to the first two areas of discussion, it will reflect on ways in which narrative might be used to interpret illness and suffering in medical humanities contexts. What I hope to show, in relation to Woods’s work on this subject, is that in order to be interpreted (indeed interpretable) the types of nonnarrative representation and communication she discusses in fact require a narrative response. We employ narratology to engage with illness experience because narrative is so fundamental to meaning-making that it is not just required, it is an inherent human response to creative outputs we encounter. This is a quite different approach to the question of narrativity in the medical humanities, and it is therefore related to, but not entirely hinged upon, the work that Woods has done, but it is intended to spark further discussion across the emergent discipline.

Towards a theory of choice poetics.

Abstract: Digital games that include narrative often let their players influence it, and this is seen as a highly desirable quality in some genres. This influence often takes the form of explicit choices within a fixed layout of branching plot lines. Traditional narrative theory does not suffice when analyzing how these game-stories function, because it has nothing to say about how players interacting with a narrative are affected by choice structures. Drawing on narrative theory, link poetics, procedural rhetoric, and craft advice, this paper introduces the outline of a novel theory of choice poetics: a framework for understanding the narrative effect of choices. Choice poetics covers modes of engagement, choice idioms, and dimensions of player experience affected by choice structure, and concrete examples are given to illustrate each case. This work provides a preliminary framework for talking about the effect of choice structures on phenomena such as agency and immersion, as well as situating craft advice such as “avoid false choices” within a larger theoretical framework that helps explain it. At the same time, it indicates several areas ripe for future theoretical and empirical work that could produce specific insights into how choices affect players.

A Structural Semiotic Perspective on Narratology

Abstract: Semiotics principally investigates and explores the production and function of signs and sign systems as well as the methods of their signification. It is mainly concerned with how a sign signifies and what precedes it at deeper level to result in the manifestation of its meaning. For this purpose, it offers a set of unified principles that underlie the construction, signification and communication of any sign system. The literary text as a sign system serves as an artfully constructed fictional discourse that signifies only when a competent reader interprets its textual signs that are basically foregrounded by the application of different literary devices. Hence, the literary semiotics seeks to explain how the textual components get their significative value within a given literary discourse. In order to do so, the conventions, discursive forces and cultural aspects of the text should be taken into consideration in explaining the processes of signification.

Narrative Transformation Among Military Personnel on an Adventurous Training and Sport Course

Abstract: In the wake of recent wars, some military personnel face considerable physical and mental health problems. In this article I explore the effects of an adapted sport and inclusive adventurous training course for military personnel who have experienced physical injury and/or psychological trauma. Using a dialogical narrative approach, I analyzed stories shared by six soldiers during the course to explore the effects of involvement. Participation in the course seemed to facilitate a narrative transformation or opening corresponding to a broadening identity and sense of self. Story plots progressed from a failing monological narrative, through a chaos narrative, toward a dialogical quest narrative prioritizing immersion in an intense present, a developing self, and a relational orientation. On the basis of narrative theory, I suggest this transformation holds positive consequences for the health and well-being of military personnel who have experienced injury and/or trauma.

Narrative Theory and Criticism: An Overview Toward Clusters and Empathy

Abstract: In this article, we overview the contributions to narrative theory and criticism across four subdisciplines of communication: rhetoric, organizational communication, health communication and cultural studies. We note that much of this work has focused on stories as individual artifacts. We propose that future work on narrative should highlight the complexity of narrative by addressing narrative clusters. Furthermore, an interpretive method of analysis that relies on extended empathy is suggested for future research, along with the development of a theory of narrative empathy. In short, we encourage researchers to explore, interpret and assess narrative and narrative clusters by way of extended empathy, a goal for expanding horizons toward understanding self and others.

Five Theses for Interactive Digital Narrative

Abstract: The field of Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) can look back at more than 25 years of research. Considerable technical advances exist alongside open questions that still need full attention. With the discussion of five crucial aspects - narrative analysis, interoperability between different implementations, sustainability of digital artifacts, author-centered view, and user-focused perspective - the paper starts a conversation on successful methods and future goals in the research field.

Between Story and Narrated World: Reflections on the Difference between Homoand Heterodiegesis [Abstract]

Abstract:  Full-length article in: JLT 8/2 (2014), 368–396. In describing the position of the narrator, research in literary studies generally follows Gerard Genette’s pioneering theory of narrative in distinguishing between the homo- and heterodiegetic type of narrator. This categorization is not sufficient to allow the position of the narrator to be described properly. The different ways in which the terms are used in literary studies reveal a shortcoming in the distinction behind them. Even in Genette’s work, there is a contradiction between the definition and the names of the two categories: Genette defines homo- and heterodiegesis with reference to the narrator’s presence in the narrated story, whereas he elsewhere states that the diegesis (in the sense of French diegese) is »auniverse rather than a train of events (a story)«: it »is therefore not the story but the universe in which the story takes place« (Genette 1988, 17; italics in original). The definition and the names do not match up in Genette’s theory of narrative; the expressions ›homo-‹ and ›heterodiegesis‹ would appear to rest on an understanding that is different from what Genette sets out explicitly. Once Genette has described ›diegesis‹ in terms of the universe of the story, the only possible interpretation of the terms ›homo-‹ and ›heterodiegetic‹ is that they are to be understood in relation to the narrated world. This in turn means that a homodiegetic narrator does not, as in Genette’s original definition, have to be part of the story: what is now essential is belonging to »the universe in which the story takes place«. Distinguishing between diegesis as universe and as story is significant because it reveals two different criteria for describing the position of the narrator: (i) the ontological status of the narratorial instance, which depends on whether it is part of the spatio-temporal universe of the narrative (the narrated world), and (ii) the degree to which the narratorial instance is involved in the story. The former criterion is clearly a question of ontology; the latter alternates between ontological and thematic criteria. As these two possible definitions of homo- and heterodiegesis are often not distinguished, the various writers who use the terms do so to refer to aspects of narrative that are not necessarily the same. Analytic practice in narrative theory would benefit considerably from keeping them apart. There is therefore a case to be made for using both possible aspects in the analysis of narrative texts while also keeping them separate by definition. The present article aims to do just that, starting from a theoretical standpoint. Thus, the different types of narrator that are possible are sketched in outline, and then explained with the help of examples. I begin by exposing the problems that result from using the terms in Genette’s manner (1), in order then to develop a list of possible narratorial standpoints based on the one hand on the involvement of the narratorial instance in the narrated world and on the other on its involvement in the story. By establishing separation of the two aspects as a ground rule in this way, a number of misunderstandings that are due to the varied ways in which the terminology has been used to date can be overcome.

Toward Narrative Strategy

Abstract: Strategic planning exercises often begin with the observation, “We need a better story to tell.” We argue that this is not just a figure of speech but that the narrative form is uniquely appropriate to both the development and the effective communication of good strategies. Drawing on recent literature in the relatively new field of narratology, we argue that the temporal structure of stories allows for a reach into the future that evidence-based, analytic approaches cannot achieve. The case of Nakamura's turnaround at Matsushita/Panasonic is cited as an example of narrative strategy.

Story Coalitions: Applying Narrative Theory to the Study of Coalition Formation

Abstract: This article explores the potential of incorporating narrative theory into the study of coalition formation. Following a discussion of the role of narratives in group-formation processes in a coalition-driven dynamic, we offer a theoretical framework to examine the ways political stories espoused by people are mirrored by the partisan system. We integrate theoretical assumptions of narrative studies with coalition-formation theories in an attempt to frame coalition-formation models in terms of voters' political stories. We test our theoretical framework by simulating various possible coalitions in the Israeli 2009 elections and assess the results based upon data from an exit poll survey.

Character Networks and Centrality

Abstract: A character network represents relations between characters from a text; the relations are based on text proximity, shared scenes/events, quoted speech, etc. Our project sketches a theoretical framework for character network analysis, bringing together narratology, both close and distant reading approaches, and social network analysis. It is in line with recent attempts to automatise the extraction of literary social networks (Elson, 2012; Sack, 2013) and other studies stressing the importance of character- systems (Woloch, 2003; Moretti, 2011). The method we use to build the network is direct and simple. First, we extract co-occurrences from a book index, without the need for text analysis. We then describe the narrative roles of the characters, which we deduce from their respective positions in the network, i.e. the discourse. As a case study, we use the autobiographical novel Les Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We start by identifying co-occurrences of characters in the book index of our edition (Slatkine, 2012). Subsequently, we compute four types of centrality: degree, closeness, betweenness, eigenvector. We then use these measures to propose a typology of narrative roles for the characters. We show that the two parts of Les Confessions, written years apart, are structured around mirroring central figures that bear similar centrality scores. The first part revolves around the mentor of Rousseau; a figure of openness. The second part centres on a group of schemers, depicting a period of deep paranoia. We also highlight characters with intermediary roles: they provide narrative links between the societies in the life of the author. The method we detail in this complete case study of character network analysis can be applied to any work documented by an index.

Reinterpretation of Narratological Duration Within the Framework of Translation Studies

Abstract: During the recent years when cross-disciplinary probe prevails, more and more scholars have produced works combining narratology and translation studies. The majority of them are with regard to the discussion of a particular fiction translation in the perspective of its narrative story and discourse. Nevertheless, few have probed into the narrative duration, a sub-category of narrative time at the discourse level of narratology, and translation. This essay is an attempt in this direction with supporting examples from the fiction translation by Zhou Shoujuan, a translator of the Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic in China.

Rethinking formal-cultural and textual-contextual divides in adaptation studies

Abstract: When I began my career as an adaptation scholar in the late 1990s, it was as an interdisciplinary scholar of literature and film. My research included but was not limited to adaptation. Adaptation studies was then chiefly concerned with literature and film: primarily novels, but also theater, with a tertiary interest in television adaptations of canonical literature. Although cultural studies was making inroads at the time, the field was, as it had been for most of the twentieth century, dominated by formal theories, most commonly aesthetic formalism, New Criticism, and structuralist narratology. These theories were regularly engaged to contest the relative values and capacities of literature and film in order to claim disciplinary, media, and cultural territory for one or the other. By the time my book historicizing and analyzing these interdisciplinary dynamics was published in 2003, dialogics and structuralist and poststructuralist theories of intertextuality were challenging older formal theories. New formal theories were seldom used to vaunt one discipline or medium over another; they were more often used to champion one theory over another: formal hybridities over aesthetic formalisms medium specificity, poststructuralist intertextuality over structuralist narratology, and dialogics over New Critical organic unity. Thus while in the twentieth century literature and film scholars used adaptations to vie for disciplinary territory and power, in the twentyfirst, they have more often used adaptations to compete for theoretical dominion and authority.Theoretical contests in adaptation studies have in the twenty-first century not been solely or even primarily waged between older and newer formal theories; they have been fought more prominendy among formal/textual and cultural/contextual theories, epistemologies, and methodologies. If in the twentieth century aesthetic formalist scholars recommended that literature and film should occupy separate spheres,1 in the twenty-first, formal and cultural scholars do more than occupy separate spheres: they oppose and at times seek to do away with the other kind of scholarship. Since no critic denies that a full understanding of adaptation requires both and, more than this, that textual and contextual aspects of adaptation intertwine inextricably, this is somewhat perplexing. This article therefore seeks to explicate current and recent formal-cultural and textual-contextual divides in adaptation studies by tracing their history, probing the theoretical differences driving them, considering prior attempts to redress their rifts, and suggesting further ways to do so.Historicizing the RiftsWhile disagreement and criticism are essential components of any academic endeavor and can be highly productive, the belated arrival of the theoretical turn in adaptation studies has produced a particularly acute polarization between formal and cultural approaches to adaptation that has often been unproductive. Bringing theories into adaptation studies in the mid-1990s that were established elsewhere in the humanities by the 1980s and mainstream by the early 1990s with the vigor and polemics of the 1960s and '70s proved all the more fraught because literatureand-film studies and adaptation studies were established refuges from the theoretical turn-strongholds of New Criticism, formalism, aestheticism, and humanism. Indeed, Literature/Film Quarterly was founded in 1973 in response to the incursion of high theory in film studies and its uncompromising hostility to older theoretical approaches (Leitch, "Where Are We Going"). This meant that many scholars of literature, film, and adaptation had already considered and rejected the cultural and neoformal theories brought into the field by Deborah Cartmell, Imelda Whelehan, Ian Q. Hunter, Heidi Kaye, Robert Stam, Robert B. Ray, Sarah Cardwell, Thomas Leitch, and others at the turn of the twenty-first century. The conflict was further exacerbated by the fact that the theoretical turn arrived fully formed in adaptation studies, missing out on dialogues between Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysts, structuralist and poststructuralist semioticians, modernist and postmodern cultural theorists, and colonial and postcolonial scholars-discussions that had produced more gradual and integrated revolutions elsewhere, incorporating as well as rejecting prior thought. …

Narrative and Peace: a “New Story” to address structural violence

Abstract: This thesis applies narrative as theory and method to explore a growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship that connects a holistic and process understanding of the world (a “New Story”) with social and ecological justice (or “positive peace”). First, the indirect violence of global poverty and environmental destruction are examined in terms of the dissipation of individual responsibility amid political, economic and social institutions. Second, a connection is made between these structural forms of violence and one-dimensional narratives. Drawing from an argument shared by process thinkers Charles Birch, Alan Watts and Thomas Berry, I critique the “Old Story” of onedimensional religious narratives, and one-dimensional reductionistic narratives of the “Modern Story”. These stories are contrasted with a multi-dimensional and ecological worldview that Berry calls a “New Story”, which narrates an understanding of the self, humanity and the cosmos as one interconnecting process. This process understanding of the world is shown to be located in a rich and vast history of panentheistic theology. This research concludes that the narratological “New Story” engages conflicting worldviews, enables “positive conflict” and motivates action toward a long-term vision of positive peace.

The Story Behind Any Story: Evolution, Historicity, and Narrative Mapping

Abstract: "The narratives of the world are numberless"; yet, all stories may be seen as chapters of a single story, the story of universal evolution as uncovered by contemporary science, with processes of human emergence and cultural development as a prominent backdrop to the understanding of any narrative process. Evolutionary approaches to literary and cultural phenomena (as theorized by socio-biologists like E. O. Wilson and by evo-critics like Joseph Carroll in the literary field) have led to a growing awareness that these literary and cultural phenomena are best accounted for within a conciliant disciplinary framework. From this conciliant standpoint, human modes of communication must be contextualized as situated historical phenomena, and history as such is to be placed within the wider context of the evolution of human societies and of life generally (what is often called "big history", to use David Christian's term). Using the notions of "narrative mapping" and "narrative anchoring", this paper draws from the aforementioned theoretical outlook a series of conclusions relevant to narratology, in particular to the narratological conceptualization of time and temporal schemata, and to the narrative understanding of evolutionary processes. The importance of evolutionary and historicist conceptual frames regarding the production and analysis of narratives is pointed out, and more specifically their significance for an adequate definition of narrative mapping and narrative anchoring. In a nutshell, narrative anchoring is understood here as the intertextual relationship situating a given evolutionary or historical process within the frame of larger evolutionary processes, for instance an individual story as being typical of a given historical process or situation, or as being framed by it; while narrative mapping is conceived as a wider cognitive process whereby a variety of narrative strategies, themselves historically situated, allow subjects to shape or interpret narratives and to anchor them historically or place them with respect to other narratives. A variety of culture-dependent conceptions of big history underpin the production, the reception and the critical analysis of any specific narrative, as well as any narrativizing strategy, in the sense that these conceptions provide both a general ideational background to the experiences depicted in the narratives, and a mental framework in which to situate (e.g. historicize) the narrative genres used in the depiction. Evolutionary theory is itself a major instance of narrative mapping, and its emergent nature is focused in the paper's conclusion. In this light, Herbert Spencer's philosophical work is examined through the lens of its narratological significance, as a major step in the narrativization of science, and in the concomitant development of a scientific narratology.

nARratives of augmented worlds

Abstract: This paper presents an examination of augmented reality (AR) as a rising form of interactive narrative that combines computer-generated elements with reality, fictional with non-fictional objects, in the same immersive experience. Based on contemporary theory in narratology, we propose to view this blending of reality worlds as a metalepsis, a transgression of reality and fiction boundaries, and argue that authors could benefit from using existing conventions of narration to emphasize the transgressed boundaries, as is done in other media. Our contribution is three-fold, first we analyze the inherent connection between narrative, immersion, interactivity, fictionality and AR using narrative theory, and second we comparatively survey actual works in AR narratives from the past 15 years based on these elements from the theory. Lastly, we postulate a future for AR narratives through the perspective of the advancing technologies of both interactive narratives and AR.

Narratology and translation

Abstract: In their explorations of narrative, many narratologists distinguish between the narrated (the situations and events presented), the narrating (the way these situations and events are presented), an...

Was ist ein Narrativ

Abstract: The article proposes a definition of the German term ›Narrativ‹ as an analytical category of interdisciplinary narratology. Based on the terminological approaches of both psychology and history, ›Narrativ‹ is described as an intersubjective narrative pattern consisting of specific structural features. The depiction of these features allows for a more accurate analysis of phenomena of collective narration from a comparative perspective. The utility of the concept will be proved by analysing some aspects of the ongoing debate on a ›New Narrative for Europe‹. It becomes apparent that a stock of consistent terminology based on philological basic research is necessary for major problems of interdisciplinary narratology.

Intermediality between Games and Fiction: The "Ludology vs. Narratology" Debate in Computer Game Studies: A Response to Gonzalo Frasca

Abstract: In the last ten or fourteen years there has been a debate among the so called ludologists and narratologists in Computer Games Studies as to what is the best methodological approach for the academic study of electronic games. The aim of this paper is to propose a way out of the dilemma, suggesting that both ludology and narratology can be helpful methodologically. However, there is need for a wider theoretical perspective, that of semiotics, in which both approaches can be operative. The semiotic perspective proposed allows research in the field to focus on the similarities between games and traditional narrative forms (since they share narrativity to a greater or lesser extent) as well as on their difference (they have different degrees of interaction); it will facilitate communication among theorists if we want to understand each other when talking about games and stories, and it will lead to a better understanding of the hybrid nature of the medium of game. In this sense the present paper aims to complement Gonzalo Frasca's reconciliatory attempt made a few years back and expand on his proposal. 1