Showing papers on "Narratology published in 2015"

Narrative identity construction in times of career change: Taking note of unconscious desires

Abstract: Working at the intersection of narrative and psychoanalytic theory, we present in this article an affective conceptualization of identity dynamics during times of career change, incorporating the notion of unconscious desires. We propose that frictions in career change narratives, such as the paradoxical co-existence of coherence and ambiguity, allude to unconscious subtexts that can become ‘readable’ in the narrative when applying a psychoanalytic framework. We point to the analysis of 30 life story interviews with former management consultants who report upon a past and/or anticipated career change for illustration. By linking three empirically derived narrative strategies for combining coherence and ambiguity (ignoring the change, admitting the ambiguity and depicting a wishful future) with three conceptually informed psychoanalytic ego-defenses (denial, rationalization and sublimation), we provide an analytic framework that helps to explain why workers in transition may try to preserve both coherence ...

Towards a Specific Theory of Interactive Digital Narrative

Abstract: This chapter explains several broad trajectories that exist in the application of narrative theory to interactive digital narratives (IDNs). An initial milestone was set by Brenda Laurel who adopted Aristotle's Poetics to explain interactive drama. The chapter analyses several existing theoretical perspectives to foreground the scope and focus of earlier contributions and investigate which aspects are not fully covered yet. It then describes the theoretical framework that overcomes the limitations inherent in approaches that adapt and redefine existing theories of narrative grounded in legacy media. Finally, the chapter discusses narrative design to describe the structure within a protostory that describes a flexible presentation of a narrative. The protostory in Facade contains the space of possible stories described by the contents of the narrative units, the drama manager's goals and preconditions. Together with the terms protostory, narrative design, and narrative vectors the theoretical framework captures specific aspects of IDN.

Critical Theory: The Key Concepts

Abstract: Critical Theory: The Key Concepts introduces over 300 widely-used terms, categories and ideas drawing upon well-established approaches like new historicism, postmodernism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and narratology as well as many new critical theories of the last twenty years such as Actor-Network Theory, Global Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Speculative Realism. This book explains the key concepts at the heart of a wide range of influential theorists from Agamben to Žižek. Entries range from concise definitions to longer more explanatory essays and include terms such as: Aesthetics Desire Dissensus Dromocracy Hegemony Ideology Intersectionality Late Capitalism Performativity Race Suture Featuring cross-referencing throughout, a substantial bibliography and index, Critical Theory: The Key Concepts is an accessible and easy-to-use guide. This book is an invaluable introduction covering a wide range of subjects for anyone who is studying or has an interest in critical theory (past and present).

Unnatural Narrative: Theory, History, and Practice

Abstract: * Richardson, Brian. Unnatural Narrative: Theory, History, and Practice. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 20x5.197 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8142-1279-0. * Alber, Jan. Unnatural Narrative: Impossible Worlds in Fiction and Drama. Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P, 2016. 294 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8032-7868-4. Unnatural narratology has become one of the most prominent recent developments in narrative theory. It started around the year 2000 with the work of Brian Richardson, who collected his explorations of unnatural narratives in his 2006 study Unnatural Voices. The approach quickly attracted a group of young scholars, focusing on unusual fictional texts and questioning the usual narratological concepts. Among them were Jan Alber, Stefan Iversen, Maria Makela, and Henrik Skov Nielsen. The term "unnatural" obviously alluded to Monika Fludernik's "natural narratology" (1996). Fludernik was inspired by Jonathan Culler's idea of "naturalization," stressing the ways in which readers try to turn alienating texts into something they can understand. Richardson, on the other hand, took his cue from postmodernist fiction and poststructuralist theories, stressing the irreducibility of the alien and the exceptional. Culler's "naturalization" is a strategy that turns the peculiar and the unknown into the known. It depends upon "cultural and literary models" supposedly present in readers' heads (138). These models range from general cultural patterns of signification, such as intentionality, to specific literary knowledge of periods and genres. The application of the models normalizes the abnormal: "'Naturalization' emphasizes the fact that the strange or deviant is brought within a discursive order and thus made to seem natural" (137). Fludernik elaborates on and updates Culler's study of these models via cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis. From William Labov she borrows the term "natural narrative"--oral, everyday stories people tell each other. Fludernik develops Culler's concept of models into her concept of frames; she uses the term "experientiality" to describe the central process of normalization (as soon as a reader recognizes a center of experience in a narrative, he or she can come to grips with the text); and she replaces the term "naturalization" with "narrativation." Although Fludernik's basic idea is that people tend to normalize the abnormal, she does realize that some texts cannot be fully normalized. Narratives such as James Joyce's Finnegans Wake remain "unreadable" (Towards 293). They result in collapse: When narrativization breaks down, whether incipiently or in full measure, it does so where the consciousness factor can no longer be utilized to tide over radical inconsistency, and this happens first and foremost where overall textual coherence or micro-level linguistic coherence (and cohesion) are at risk. (317) The preference for consistency and narrativization that seems to underlie formulations like these is precisely what Richardson's unnatural narratology rejects. Simply put, he sees the process of naturalization as a form of reductionism, which smooths over the problematic aspects of narrative texts and which reformulates the new into something old. In this way, the complex, literary, and disruptive nature of the narrative is disregarded. Unnatural narratology, on the other hand, holds this complex nature in high regard and wants to respect it in its interpretation. The fundamental differences between the two narratological views were formulated clearly in a joint 2010 essay by Alber et al. They claimed that natural and classical narratology are guilty of "mimetic reductionism" ("Unnatural Narratives" 115) as they reduce the sophistication of literary narrative to everyday storytelling. The theorists point to three levels of literary "unnaturalness" (116): unnatural storyworlds (in which impossible things happen), unnatural minds (e.g., a character that knows he is being narrated by someone else, or an omniscient character), and unnatural acts of narration (e. …

Analyzing Social Narratives

Abstract: Studying social narratives is not part of mainstream political science, but, as Shaul Shenhav argues in Analyzing Social Narratives, it ought to be. Narratives are everywhere and are an important factor in human and social life; human beings are essentially homo narrans, and so social science must take narratives seriously. Narratology is just one of many interpretivist methods that are gaining increasing ground within the social sciences. Shenhav provides an introduction to the study of social narratives, while also contributing to the theoretical development of the field himself through notions such as multiplicity (referring to the proliferation of narratives through repetition and variation) and story-listening (referring to the way in which the researcher interacts with stories). In this review symposium, Ronald R. Krebs, Michael D. Jones, Myron J. Aronoff and Shaul Shenhav discuss Shenhav’s book and, beyond that, the advantages of taking social narratives seriously.

Raven, P G & Elahi, S (2015). "The New Narrative: Applying narratology to the shaping of futures outputs."

Abstract: Both scenario development and design practices incorporate elements of storytelling, but this use remains undertheorised. This paper will draw upon literary theory, film theory and science fiction criticism to develop an analytical model of narrative structure and rhetorics which speaks to the concerns of scenario developers and designers when engaged in shaping the final outputs or deliverables of a futures project. After highlighting the differing role of telos in art and futures and defining the metacategory of “narratives of futurity”, this paper then defines the terms “story”, “narrative”, “narrator” and “world” in the literary context. It then shows how those concepts map onto futures practice, before going into detail regarding the variety of narrative strategies available across a range of different forms and media, and the qualitative effects that they can reproduce in audiences. There follows the construction of a 2 × 2 matrix based on the critical concepts of narrative mode and narrative logic, within which narratives of futurity might be usefully catalogued and compared, and from which certain broad conclusions may be reached as regards the relation between choice of medium and rhetorical effect. The implications of this analysis are explored in detail.

Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend

Abstract: For Palmer (2004, 2010), and other proponents of a cognitive narratology, research into real-world minds in the cognitive sciences provides insights into readers’ experiences of fictional minds. In this article, I explore the application of such research to the minds constructed for the vampire characters in Richard Matheson’s (1954) science fiction/horror novel I Am Legend. I draw upon empirical research into ‘mind attribution’ in social psychology, and apply Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 2008), and its notion of ‘construal’, as a framework for the application of such findings to narrative. In my analysis, I suggest that readers’ attribution of mental-states to the vampires in Matheson’s novel is strategically limited through a number of choices in their linguistic construal. Drawing on online reader responses to the novel, I argue that readers’ understanding of these other minds plays an important role in their empathetic experience and their ethical judgement of the novel’s main character and focaliser, Robert Neville. Finally, I suggest that the limited mind attribution for the vampires invited through their construal contributes to the presentation of a ‘mind style’ (Fowler, 1977) for this character.

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.

From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative

Abstract: This essay collection examines the theory and history of graphic narrative as one of the most interesting and versatile forms of narrative beyond traditional literary texts. Analyzing a wide range of texts, genres, and narrative strategies from both theoretical and historical perspectives, its various contributors offer state-of-the-art research on graphic narrative in the context of an increasingly postclassical and transmedial narratology.

A Narrative Approach to Understand Students’ Identities and Choices

Abstract: This chapter demonstrates how narrative theory in general, and narrative psychology in particular, contribute to understand how students make meaning of their choice of post-secondary studies. In particular two central ideas within the theory are unfolded; the concept of identity and the concept of time. The applicability of the theory is discussed using empirical examples. The chapter argues that a narrative approach provides an understanding of choice of study as continuous processes where individuals work on their identities in terms of negotiating and constructing a coherent choice-narrative. As a consequence future studies need to be careful when interpreting student statements about how they always wanted to study a particular subject. Narrative psychology illustrates how we need to contextualize this ‘always’ in terms of the students’ current position, cultural context and meaning making. At the end of the chapter consequences for future research are discussed as well as how this approach to students’ choices of study contributes to our understanding of students’ science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) choices.

The Self and Spirituality: Overcoming Narrative Loss in Aging

Abstract: As humans we make sense of our Selves and our world through narrativization, a process which concerns matters of purpose, truth, and values. This is at one and the same time a spiritual activity as both spirituality and narrative involve a sense of openness and indeterminacy, and the generation of meaning and purpose. As we age, however, physical, mental, and social changes may disrupt how we narrativize our lives resulting in “narrative loss.” With reference to mental health, we explore such narrative losses and some possible ways of countering these, drawing on practices in spiritual direction and narrative theory.

Fictional Transits and Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being

Abstract: Focusing on Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being , this essay engages the transits between the fictional and the autobiographical by deploying notions from narratology, including a proposal regarding the difference between “fiction” and “the fictive,” reflections on metatextual performance, and the idea of the implied author.

Future of story: Transmedia journalism and National Geographic's Future of Food project

Abstract: Moloney, Kevin (Ph.D., Technology, Media and Society, ATLAS Institute) Future of Story: Transmedia Journalism and National Geographic’s Future of Food Project Directed by Associate Professor Mark Winokur This dissertation describes the techniques of transmedia storytelling and examines them in the context of journalism. Its principle case study explores the National Geographic Society’s (NGS) Future of Food project as an example of transmedia journalism. Having many proprietary media channels, the NGS is uniquely positioned to produce expansive stories on complex issues. The case study is contextualized through the history of the organization and staff interviews about structural and philosophical changes there. The project is qualitatively analyzed for its use of media form, media channel and story expansion. The structure of the network of stories is quantitatively analyzed through social network analysis. This study contributes the first detailed network analysis of a transmedia storyworld, an examination of an early instance of transmedia journalism and initial best practices for the scaleable production of it. These methods are framed through a novel use of Multimodality to explain the agency of media as nonhuman actors in Actor-Network Theory. Analysis shows that though the Future of Food project was designed independently of existing concepts of transmedia storytelling, it mirrors those concepts well. The project builds a complex storyworld, expands content across media and seeks to engage diverse audiences. However, the scale of the storyworld arguably complicates engagement by defying mastery by committed readers. Network analysis also shows that the project maintains much of the broadcast

Beyond “Mimetic Reductionism”. Exploring Unnatural Narratology [Jan Alber / Henrik Skov Nielsen / Brian Richardson (Eds.): A Poetics of Unnatural Narrative. Columbus 2013]

Abstract: Rezension zu / Review of: Jan Alber / Henrik Skov Nielsen / Brian Richardson (Eds.): A Poetics of Unnatural Narrative. Columbus 2013.

Author and narrator : transdisciplinary contributions to a narratological debate

Abstract: The distinction between author and narrator is one of the cornerstones of narrative theory. In the past two decades, however, scope, implications and consequences of this distinction have become the subjects of debate. This volume offers contributions to these debates from different vantage points: literary studies, linguistics, philosophy, and media studies. It thus manifests the status of narrative theory as a transdisciplinary project.

Is Narrative “The Description of Fictional Mental Functioning”? Heliodorus Against Palmer, Zunshine & Co

Abstract: This essay challenges concepts that consider the theory of mind to be key to our response to narrative from a historical perspective. Although the classical modern novel lends itself to the claims of Palmer, Zunshine, and others on account of its prominent consciousness presentation, the ancient novel as well as modern paralitterature cannot be adequately described as “the description of fictional mental functioning.” An exemplary reading of Heliodorus’ Ethiopica draws our attention to an aspect that is in danger of being downplayed in cognitive narratology, namely the temporal dynamics of narrative.

Shakespeare on film : through the lens of a narrative theory

Abstract: Although Shakespeare's plays have been the subject of thousands of film adaptations and thoroughly interpreted within the sub-field of Shakespeare on Film, they have rarely been considered in relation to narrative theory. Viewing the films in this context sheds light on the process by which early modern dramatic dialogue and action is reshaped for the screen. Building on the work done by narrative theorists, particularly those addressing the issues of film (including H. Porter Abbott, Mieke Bal, Roland Barthes, David Bordwell, Edward Branigan, Seymour Chatman, Gerard Genette, David Herman, Suzanne Keen, Susan Onega, Gerald Prince and Marie-Laure Ryan), this dissertation focuses on the way changes occur at the levels of the syuzhet (the order of the events in a particular narration) and how this interacts with a film’s style (the way events are communicated in a specific medium). The impact of these changes on the fabula (the events of a story reconstructed in chronological order) is then assessed to ascertain how the films alter the way the stories are interpreted. This thesis also uses quantitative measurements to establish not only how much text is utilised but also where specific cuts occur. By transcribing the original text of Shakespeare's plays and the spoken dialogue of specific films into Final Draft screenwriting software, the precise temporal positioning of the key story events can be identified. Differences that might not otherwise be easily perceptible are also highlighted; these include changes to role size, words per speech, shares of dialogue and areas of textual cutting. These findings will inform further qualitative analysis using the traditional techniques of close reading. My methodology illuminates the way changes have been made at the

Key concepts and basic notes on narratology and narrative

Abstract: The field of narratology is concerned with the study and analysis of narrative texts. It puts under investigation literary pieces of language and yields an understanding of the components has in its very texture. The aim of this article is to provide insights about the field of ‘narratology’ and its associated subject of study ‘narrative’. It also tries to sketch the main issues concerning these two concepts. For this, the present review is presented in two major sections, each with related discussions about narratology and narrative. The first major part, narratology, will be presented in three sections: the first section, deals with the definitions and origins of narratology. The definitions are inspected and the researchers show how they go from general (encompassing all which is narrated) to more specific (encompassing literary narratives told by a narrator) ones. The second section, focuses on the two phases of narratology which are classical and post-classical ones in which narratology changed its orientations and scope. The last section is devoted to some of the elements and components of which narratology is made up, such as narration, focolization, narrative situation, action, story analysis, tellability, tense, time, and narrative modes which will be elaborated on in more details. The second major part, narrative, will be presented in four sections: first the concept will be defined and introduced. Then the features which make a narrative will be specified and elaborated on. In the third section, some of the elements of narratives like story, discourse, events, and existents are stressed. In the last section, it is elucidated that narrative is not just a written printed genre, rather it consists of performed genres such as plays, films, and operas.

Michel Serres' Great Story: From Biosemiotics to Econarratology

Abstract: From the five volumes of his Hermes series (1968-1980) and through to The Natural Contract in 1990, Michel Serres has rooted the origins of human language firmly in the rhythms and calls of the natural world.1 To date, the Anglophone reception of this complex and varied oeuvre has been slender to the point of emaciation, but one area where he has received some small fraction of the attention he deserves is in his elaboration of a theory of semiotic meaning in dialogue with information theory and fluid dynamics.2 Since 2001, however, Serres has been expanding his account of biosemiotics3 with four key texts (2001, 2005, 2007, 2009) that move into the area of narratology, developing a new non-anthropocentric humanism in terms of what he calls the ‘Great Story’ (Grand Recit) of the universe. In developing a narrative of the universe, this new departure begins to show us how the powerful tool of narrative identity can be brought alongside Serres’ existing biosemiotics to challenge and shape the way we understand the ‘non-human’ world. It also affords a way to revitalize the hitherto anthropocentric notion of narrative identity at a moment when solutions to the most important global questions must increasingly surpass the bounds of narrowly human and cultural worlds. This article will argue for using the Serresian Grand Recit as a way to extend narrative identity into the area of ecology, showing how it offers new ways of rethinking the dichotomies of nature and culture and the human and non-human that go beyond deconstruction and asking whether ‘the story of the universe’ can be thought of as a subjective or at least a double genitive, told by a universe that does not rely on humans to ventriloquize it. I will then address the objection that the Grand Recit is a totalizing account of history that cuts against the grain of Serres’ own resistance to universal models and metaphors.

The narrative construction of dyslexic identities in adults

Abstract: Identity and self are complex and fragmented concepts. There are various theories, but narrative is a useful framework for understanding and investigating them. Narrative theory and social constructionism, which have similar ontological foundations but differ somewhat in other ways, are combined in this thesis to investigate how adults with dyslexia construct their identities. A new concept, ‘storyworld’, is presented and used to demonstrate how the narrative construction of lived time shapes identity construction. The stories adults tell about their lived experience of disability allow a glimpse into the impact of disability on identity and selfhood. Dyslexia, as a specific disability characterised by difficulties with literacy, has the potential to be a moral issue with which sufferers have to contend in everyday life. This study presents findings from narrative life interviews with 14 adults who identify as dyslexic. First, the adults’ discursive constructions of dyslexia are presented. Decisions about disclosure and concealment are important and have impacts on lived-lives and future plans. They bring up identity issues such as change and difference. Change and difference vis-a-vis a label of dyslexia, perceptions of self, thoughts about people’s perceptions and new ways one can deal with difficulties related to dyslexia, were expressed through the participants’ narratives. The life narratives of two women are then presented as case studies, with specific reference to disclosure and their journeys from initial suspicions of dyslexia to current difficulties and identity struggles. The concept of ‘storyworld’ is used to shape the analyses, focusing on how the lived life is framed within the told story and how the participants narratively construct their lives. Finally, the narrative structures, plots and timelines of the participants’ stories are analysed. In terms of identity, the temporal complexity of the stories, exposed through a storyworld analysis, indicates the self-significance of the lived-events that are told.

Care, Narrativity, and the Nature of Disponibilité

Abstract: This paper attempts to make more explicit the relationship between narrativity and feminist care ethics. The central concern is the way in which narrativity carries the semantic load that some accounts of feminist care ethics imply but leave hanging. In so doing, some feminist theorists of care-based ethics then undervalue the major contribution that narrativity provides to care ethics: it carries the semantic load that is essential to the best care. In this article, I defend the narrative as the central medium though which we make sense of and communicate our lives and their attendant hopes and cares. More than just working with the narrative of the cared-for, caring is about investing in the narrative of the cared-for in order to meet the needs of this cared-for and how this narrative might turn out. I will further demonstrate how the attitude of caring or investing in a narrative would amount to what Gabriel Marcel has described as the attitude of disponibilite.

Narrative: The Basics

Abstract: Providing an up-to-date and accessible overview of the essentials of narrative theory, Narrative: The Basics guides the reader through the major approaches to the study of narrative, using contemporary examples from a wide range of narrative forms to answer key questions including: What is narrative? What are the "universals" of narrative? What is the relationship between narrative and ideology? Does the reader have a role in narrative? Has the digital age brought radically new forms of narrative? Each chapter introduces key theoretical terms, providing thinking points and suggestions for further study. With an emphasis on applying theory to example studies, it is an ideal introduction to the current study of narrative.

Narrative Sequence in Contemporary Narratology

Abstract: The Ohio State University Press 180 Pressey Hall 1070 Carmack Rd. Columbus, Ohio 43210 “Narrative Sequence in Contemporary Narratology coheres very strongly as a series of explorations of current research from various perspectives on what narrative theory can tell us about sequence— mostly sequence of discourse, though occasionally sequence of story. People who do narrative theory and who teach narrative theory will want to read this book.” —David Richter, CUNY Graduate School

Postmodern narrative in Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse-Five

Abstract: This article explores Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) as a postmodern critique of modern literary modes. As a novel recapitulating within itself a postmodern relative perspective of reality, it elucidates one aspect of postmodernism, that of literary experimentation. Vonnegut experiments with the narrator,setting and characters of the novel to provide a fictional critique of the literary exhaustion prevailing in modern literary modes. Experimentation is thus remedial replenishment for such exhaustion through authorial metafictional intrusion into the text. Accordingly, the article uses Patricia Waugh, Gerard Genette and Mikhail Bakhtin’s narrative theory to examine the experimental technique in the novel. What makes the majority of metafictional style unique is not only its presence in the novel, but also its conflated depiction of the American individual’s suffering after the Second World War.For this later style, the self-justifying manner in the novel extrapolates textual dialogic relations to accentuate the author’s critical voice. Such voice originates in the main narrative point of view in the text and is known as focalization.