Showing papers on "Narratology published in 2022"

On the pseudo-open world and ludotopian dissonance: A curious case of Cyberpunk 2077

Abstract: The article proposes and discusses the term of ‘ludotopian dissonance’ in reference to flawed open-world design in computer role-playing games (cRPGs). Much like ludonarrative dissonance, this concept shall address a paradox of narrative credibility ‐ this time, however, narrowed to the gameworld itself rather than to gameplay or storyline. This case study of Cyberpunk 2077’s world-building is supplemented with reflection upon the idea of openness or ‘openworldlness’ (‘what makes a given imaginary world truly open? Is it possible? Or is it viable for video games?’), as well as with research on explorable imaginary worlds (predominantly from the angle of transmedial narratology and interdisciplinary world-building studies). The aim of the article is to reiterate the necessity of design worlds that do not only serve as a container for storytelling, but also provide the players with an inhabitable, performative ludotopia which does not produce any dissonances between the credible storyworld and incredulous gameworld.

Posthuman Metamorphosis

Abstract: From Dr. Moreau’s Beast People to David Cronenberg’s Brundlefly, Stanislaw Lem’s robot constructors in the Cyberiad to Octavia Butler’s human/alien constructs in the Xenogenesis trilogy, Posthuman Metamorphosis examines modern and postmodern stories of corporeal transformation through interlocking frames of posthumanism, narratology, and second-order systems theory. New media generate new metamorphs. New stories have emerged from cybernetic displacements of life, sensation, or intelligence from human beings to machines. But beyond the vogue for the cyborg and the cybernetic mash-up of the organic and the mechanical, Posthuman Metamorphosis develops neocybernetic systems theories illuminating alternative narratives that elicit autopoietic and symbiotic visions of the posthuman. Systems theory also transforms our modes of narrative cognition. Regarding narrative in the light of the autopoietic systems it brings into play, neocybernetics brings narrative theory into constructive relation with the systemic operations of observation, communication, and paradox. Posthuman Metamorphosis draws on Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Niklas Luhmann, Cary Wolfe, Mieke Bal, Katherine Hayles, Friedrich Kittler, and Lynn Margulis to read narratives of bodily metamorphosis as allegories of the contingencies of systems. Tracing the posthuman intuitions of both pre- and post-cybernetic metamorphs, it demonstrates the viability of second-order systems theories for narrative theory, media theory, cultural science studies, and literary criticism.

Prophetic Education Management Paradigm; Construction of Planning Narratives in the Story of Prophet Musa and Prophet Khidir

Abstract: This research is based on the story in the Qur'an, which presents theological values and, at the same time, the values of social morality as an important message to be conveyed to humans. What happened to the story of Prophet Musa and Nabi Khidir provides new insights about explicit educational planning messages to be applied in educational activities. This study explores the concept of planning carried out by Prophet Musa and Nabi Khidir, which explicitly means planning. Therefore, this research focuses on how the planning narratology is constructed in the story of Prophet Musa and Nabi Khidir. This study uses a qualitative method of library research. This research uses a descriptive-analytical approach that is normative and historical, which is adapted to the literature sources. The data analysis technique uses the interpretation method or text interpretation. The study results indicate that the planning values presented in the story are; receiving, responding, valuing, organization, characterization by a value or value complex.

Critical Approaches to the Storytelling Boom

Abstract: The proponents of the contemporary storytelling boom, such as professional business storytellers and self-help coaches, urge individuals, groups, institutions, and corporations alike to find and tell their story. Social media as the predominant narrative environment for contemporary storytellers promotes the instrumentalization and commodification of stories of personal experience. Literary fiction as the primary locus for narrative experimentation finds itself conditioned and challenged by the story logic of social media, but it also possesses unique affordances for a critical engagement with the current celebration of narrative. How should a narrative theorist position oneself vis-à-vis these developments that are currently changing the public notions of what narratives are and what they can do? By drawing from narrative hermeneutics and cognitive and rhetorical narratology, this article outlines a “story-critical” approach to the current storytelling boom and provides examples of how to bring narrative-theoretical findings to bear on public and professional nonacademic storytalk. The article focuses particularly on a critical analysis of storytelling consultancy, provides an overview of antinarrativist approaches and recent criticism of the storytelling boom in narrative studies, analyzes the story logic of social media, discusses the critical potential of contemporary “metanarrative” forms of fiction, and proposes narrative hermeneutics as one possible paradigm for the critical examination of storytelling cultures. It concludes by envisioning future forms of public critical engagement for narrative theorists. Popular notions of narrative tend to celebrate the cognitive and moral benefits of storytelling while downplaying the limits of narrative understanding and popular story formulas; this article thus identifies the dissemination of tools for a critical narrative analysis among various audiences as an important task for narrative scholars.

What Is Narrative in Narrative Science? The Narrative Science Approach

Abstract: In current English, the term ‘narrative’ covers a lot of conceptual ground – from an overarching position on some big issue, to all kinds of storytelling, to a general attention to language or metaphor. This chapter argues for narrowing our conception of ‘narrative’ to add value to scholarship in the history and philosophy of science (HPS). This narrower Narrative Science Approach treats narrative as a distinct and complex discursive form, subject to careful technical theorizing in its own right. By using analytical categories from narrative theory, we can identify in rigorous detail how scientific narratives are put together, what might distinguish them from other narrative forms, and the questions they raise for HPS and narrative enquiry. Similarly, when scientists use narrative ways of reasoning, tools from cognitive narratology enable us to reconstruct their imaginative activity. As a reciprocal movement, our Narrative Science Approach promises to enrich narrative studies.

Emotions and Narrative in Ancient Literature and Beyond

Abstract: Emotions are at the core of much ancient literature, from Achilles’ heartfelt anger in Homer’s Iliad to the pangs of love of Virgil’s Dido. This volume applies a narratological approach to emotions in a wide range of texts and genres. It seeks to analyze ways in which emotions such as anger, fear, pity, joy, love and sadness are portrayed. Furthermore, using recent insights from affective narratology, it studies ways in which ancient narratives evoke emotions in their readers. The volume is dedicated to Irene de Jong for her groundbreaking research into the narratology of ancient literature.

Narrative and Natural Language

Abstract: The distinction that has become standard between natural language and formal language, which rests on differentiating what is socially evolved and experiential from what is purposefully planned, suggests that a similar emphasis on experientiality may illuminate the distinction between narrative and formal modes of knowing, which figures prominently in this volume. Support for that perspective comes from developments in both narratology and computational linguistics. A key concept from both specialties – and for this volume – is that of ‘scripts’, which indicates how even texts that are explicitly formal may be understood as narratives by experienced readers. An explicit example that illuminates these themes comes from James Clerk Maxwell’s classic paper ‘On Faraday’s Lines of Force’. It juxtaposes narrative and formal modes of representation and displays their relative advantages, suggesting that the development of scientific knowledge often depends on continual feedback between natural narrative and formal analysis.

Moving house in migrant narratives: the morphology of housing pathways from an anthropological perspective

Abstract: Focusing on migrants’ experiences of moving house in the country of settlement, the study explores the housing pathways of Russian-speaking migrants in Japan over their life courses. This paper emphasizes the need for the anthropology of migration to consider not only the housing events but also the housing pathways experienced by cross-border migrants in receiving countries. It is argued that the act of moving from one accommodation to another plays a crucial role in how migrants develop their biographies and perceptions of self. In addition to investigating house relocation, the study borrows from the Russian formalist school of narratology to examine how migrants narrativize their experiences in stories that intertwine housing pathways and movers’ identities. The study reveals how the instances of moving—and not necessarily the physical qualities of housing—emerge as dynamic forces that initiate migrants into their desired statuses.

The Sleep of Neoliberal Reason: Denialism, Conspiracies and Storytelling on Crises through Ventajas de viajar en tren

Abstract: Do fictional figurations and their formal characteristics determine our relationship with the world? In a historical moment in which several crises overlap (economic, environmental, health), what cultural imaginaries circulate and with what consequences? One of the effects of this multilevel crisis, resulting from unrestrained neoliberalism, has been the rise of conspiracy theories of all kinds. The narrative of these conspiracies converges in many ways with the discursive structure of storytelling and fiction. Such narratives seem to serve as a model to interpret the present, overflowing the realm of representation. This article will explore commonalities between narrativity and conspiracy theories. In doing so, it will analyze Ventajas de viajar en tren, a novel by Antonio Orejudo and subsequent film adaptation Aritz Moreno. The story consists of a formal exploration of creating writing from a plot that addresses issues, such as conspiracy and mental health. I propose to invert this scheme to analyze how conspiracy theory operates as an act of discursive creation and what effects it has on our experience of the present and our relationship with the present and future in social, political and cultural terms.

Cognitive Literary Studies: A Conversation with Marco Caracciolo, Monika Fludernik, Patrick Colm Hogan and Karin Kukkonen

Abstract: The article proposes a conversation on Cognitive Literary Studies with Marco Caracciolo, Monika Fludernik, Patrick Colm Hogan and Karin Kukkonen. Starting from a methodological reflection on the interdisciplinarity of this field, the scholars were asked to consider its foundations by focusing on the relationship between science and literature, and lastly to ponder the prospects of narrative theory, cognitive narratology and literary universals. The interview is preceded by a brief introduction which attempts to outline its purpose.

Narrative and experience: interdisciplinary methodologies between history and narratology

Abstract: ABSTRACT This introduction discusses key elements in the connections between narrative and experience from the viewpoints of narratology and historical studies. The linguistic turn and the several narrative turns have brought narratology and historiography close together, and a key concept in this development has been experience. Postclassical narratology emphasizes experientiality as the core of narrative, and new trends in historiography foreground the salience of experience in social and cultural history. We consider how historical narratives can be located and interpreted, assess cooperation between narratology and history, and suggest possible lines for further collaboration. Whereas the linguistic turn in historical scholarship has produced extensive theoretical and philosophical discussions on the premises of writing history, we aim to promote a methodological application of recent narratological approaches to history that will help to answer concrete empirical questions. Simultaneously, historical research turns out to be a useful partner for narratological analysis, providing a necessary understanding of time- and situation-bound contexts for interpreting particular narratives and even more, showing that narratological schemes and models of explanations are not universal, but historically constituted.

Focalization and Embodied Viewing Experience in Exhibition Narrative: Asia > Amsterdam at the Rijksmuseum

Abstract: This article shows the importance of focalization in understanding potential ideological undertones and subjective interpretations of museum exhibitions. Focalization is conceived here as both a narrative device that denotes the perspectival filtration of a museum presentation and an analytical tool that can explicate the potential ideologies behind an exhibition. To illustrate facets of focalization often manifested in the interplay between exhibition designs and viewing experiences, I provide a close reading of the arrangement in Asia > Amsterdam (2015), a temporary exhibition on cultural contact hosted by Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. Drawing on cultural theorist Mieke Bal’s conception of focalization, I call attention to an instance of internal focalization in a gallery that juxtaposed Chinese porcelain of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) with seventeenth-century Dutch still lifes. This juxtaposition, along with the specific visual order of the showpieces, promoted an embodied spectatorship that is filtered by the subjective sensory impressions of the Dutch artists: a viewing experience that drew audiences into seeing the visual and material qualities of Ming porcelain as if through the eyes of Golden Age Dutch artists. In this way, the lens of focalization also offered a framework for examining the exhibition’s subtext regarding the Dutch domestication of Asian goods.

Chrononarratology: Modelling Historical Change for Narratology

Abstract: ABSTRACT:In this article, we introduce chrononarratology as a programmatic term for a way of “doing” narratology that addresses some of the major challenges and tendencies of narrative theory. Chrononarratology builds on and takes seriously the increasing interest in historical and diachronic approaches to narrative within narratology in recent years. We begin by offering a meta-analysis of what exactly narratologists have been engaged in when they use the labels “historical” and “diachronic” narratology. The results of our meta-analysis mark the starting point for outlining chrononarratology as a framework. Chrononarratology offers a perspective that can inform narratological work in all its theoretical paradigms. It invites narratology to take into account historical change and the importance of narrative’s situatedness and calls for collaborations between scholars working on different periods. In order to arrive at chrononarratology, one does not have to change the materials one works with, but approach them with a deeper historical awareness. We conclude with a list of reflective questions for those who wish to make their own approach more chrononarratological.

The Gendered ‘I’ in Ancient Literature

Abstract: Considering the ubiquity of rhetorical training in antiquity, the volume starts from the premise that every first-person statement in ancient literature is in some way rhetorically modelled and aesthetically shaped. Focusing on different types of Greek and Latin literature, poetry and prose, from the Archaic Age to Late Antiquity, the contributions analyse the use and modelling of gender-specific elements in different types of first-person speech, be it that the speaker is (represented as) the author of a work, be it that they feature as characters in the work, narrating their own story or that of others. In doing so, they do not only offer new insights into the rhetorical strategies and literary techniques used to construct a gendered ‘I’ in ancient literature. They also address the form and function of first-person discourse in classical literature in general, touching on fields of research that have increasingly come into focus in recent years, such as authorship studies, studies concerning the ancient notion(s) of the literary persona , as well as a historical narratology that discusses concepts such as the narrator or the literary character in ancient literary theory and practice.

The empire of the narrative: Plan making through the prism of classical and postclassical narratologies

Abstract: This article theorizes the “narrative turn” in urban planning studies, using Gérard Genette’s work to differentiate first- and second-degree narratives. Genette defines the latter as paratexts that determine the public’s reception of the former. The article assesses how second-degree narratives work with different perceptual regimes to construct the reception of the political vision of territory. To that end, it resorts to the recent work of postclassical narratology. Indeed, the latter is particularly interested in the way in which the narrative, in various forms, affects its addressee. Postclassical narratology allows us to renew the theory of narrative in urban planning by focusing on what hypothetically happens in the consciousness of the receiver of the narrative when he or she becomes aware of it. Consequently, the paper sheds light on an emerging aspect of the design process: disambiguating signals embedded in urban planning documents intended for a wider public.

Fruitless Search for Coherence: A Transcultural Perspective on Netflix's Adaptation of Empresses in the Palace

Abstract: abstract:Structuralist narratology, which has played an instrumental part in the historical development of adaptation studies, now faces increasing criticism from culturally oriented scholars for its disregard of contextual factors. My essay argues that postclassical developments of narratology, which recognize culture as a powerful shaping force of narrative form, can effectively address the enduring bifurcation between formal and cultural approaches in adaptation studies. It uses the transpacific adaptation of a Chinese TV drama, renamed Empresses in the Palace by its Netflix adapters, as a case study to show how some of the important narrative transmutations are both motivated by and symptomatic of clashes between specific aspects of the Chinese and the American cultures. My discussion demonstrates that transcultural comparisons can not only foster understanding of adaptations as cultural encounters with inevitable narrative consequences, but also open up new space for the appreciation of other cultures, and provide fresh perspectives on one's own cultural and narrative traditions.

Transparent players: the use of narrative voices in game theory

Abstract: This paper examines methods for narrating consciousness in game theory. In order to represent how players process their environment, posture towards one another, and hold themselves accountable to their own thinking, I find two distinct ways that game theorists narrate the consciousness of their players. Quoted monologue is a player’s internal language, which can be articulated to show a player’s perspective to the reader. The other narrative mode is psycho-narration, which puts the external technical skills of the game-theorist into the narrator’s hands to describe a player’s mental activity with more complexity than quoted monologue. Quoted monologue and psycho-narration communicate players’ thoughts in ways that convince the readers of the players’ positions, clarify game solution concepts, and enliven the written text.

A Narratology of Drama

Abstract: This volume argues against Gérard Genette’s theory that there is an “insurmountable opposition” between drama and narrative and shows that the two forms of storytelling have been productively intertwined throughout literary history. Building on the idea that plays often incorporate elements from other genres, especially narrative ones, the present study theorises drama as a fundamentally narrative genre. Guided by the question of how drama tells stories, the first part of the study delineates the general characteristics of dramatic narration and zooms in on the use of narrative forms in drama. The second part proposes a history of dramatic storytelling from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century that transcends conventional genre boundaries. Close readings of exemplary British plays provide an overview of the dominant narrative modes in each period and point to their impact in the broader cultural and historical context of the plays. Finally, the volume argues that throughout history, highly narrative plays have had a performative power that reached well beyond the stage: dramatic storytelling not only reflects socio-political realities, but also largely shapes them.

A Brief Discussion on the Female Narrative Strategy in The Online Drama "Feng Qi Luoyang"

Abstract: : Compared with the neglected, distorted or marginalized presentation of female images in traditional film and television dramas, the online drama "Feng Qi Luoyang" not only shows the importance of the role of female images, but also expresses the female voice and female discourse. It is well explained, which changes the narrative mode of the weak and helpless image of women under the dominance of male narrative. Based on the theory of narratology, this paper explores the female perspective and "female focus" in the online drama from the aspects of narrative situation and narrative field, and studies the unique narrative voice of women in "Feng Qi Luoyang".

Narratology and character functions of Sohni Mahiwal: An actantial analysis

Abstract: The study analyses Sohni Mahiwal, the renowned Punjabi folktale, by applying Greimas Actantial model for structural analysis. The purpose of this study is to explore the narrative structure and discover the character functions based on the model. Folktales are considered the simplest and oldest form of stories embedded in the local cultures. They broadly refer to orally transmitted, traditional narratives that carry cultural information. The findings show that all the major actantial categories proposed by Greimas such as subject, object, sender, receiver, helper, and opponent have been depicted in the selected folktale. The analysis revealed that many characters were found involved in several actant classes simultaneously. Structural analysis of the folktale uncovered two parallel acts/episodes. The parallelism in the contents of two acts of the tale serves a didactic function at the socio-cultural level besides entertaining the readers/ listeners proving the strength of true love. As far as the function is concerned, the tale successfully validates the culturally imparted message that the individuals who transgress the social norms are destined to perish.

Conceptual Forays: A Corpus-based Study of “Theory” in Digital Humanities Journals

Abstract: The status of theory in the Digital Humanities (DH) has been the subject of much debate. As a result, we find different theory narratives competing and entangled with each other. If at all, these narratives can only be grasped and examined from a somewhat detached perspective. Here, we attempt to investigate these elusive narratives by means of a conceptual history approach. In doing so, we define different theory dimensions, ranging from specific cultural and literary theory frameworks to more generic uses of the concept of theory. We examine the use and semantic changes of these theory notions in a large corpus of DH journals. Using a mixture of heuristic methods and approaches from the field of distributional semantics, we aim to create tellable conceptual stories of DH theory.

Afterword

Abstract: This chapter pays tribute to David Lawton, a pioneer and leading scholar in the field of voice studies in Middle English. Over the course of the past 40 years David Lawton has produced scholarship of continued relevance. From his earliest work on alliterative poetry to his recent edition of Chaucer, he has pioneered editorial innovations. At the same time, his work on narratology has both deployed and questioned the structuralist turn. His attention to otherness and empire engaged the postcolonial condition before it had a name. His work on theology and religious history prefigured a critical religious studies.

Imagining the Dalit Identity: An Analysis of Narrative Techniques in Select Dalit writing

Abstract: This paper analyses the narrative techniques of two Dalit texts; an autobiography called Joothan by Omprakash Valmiki and a novel called Koogai: The Owl by Cho. Dharman. Through this analysis, the paper presents an account of the changing socio-political conditions of the Dalits in India after independence. Using the theoretical framework of narratology, the paper argues that the two very different narrative styles present in these two texts are reflective of the respective conditions within which their writers found themselves in and the larger socio-political questions that the Dalit emancipation movement was dealing with during those periods. Another aspect that the paper covers is how these two texts present the inherent conflicts and contradictions within the Dalit identity. It then asks the question whether these contradictions should be flattened to present a more homogeneous conceptualisation of what it means to be a Dalit or whether the identity should be imagined alongside these contradictions.

Concepts in folktales – Manifestations of embodied worldviews

Abstract: The semantics of linguistic units is not an object of study, but in some cases purely linguistic information is used to support the conclusions of semiotic, textual and intertextual analyses. The term “semantics” is not used in this work in a narrow sense (study of the meanings of linguistic units), but in a more global sense (study of the structure of the meaning of the work as a whole). Thus, the semiotic structure and the textual organization of literary tales, as well as the structure of the links of these works with other texts, are considered to be characteristics of their deep semantic structure. The tale has been studied from different angles. The formation and sources of the fairy tale genre have been studied (Propp 2000), E. Meletinsky (1977, 1995, 2000), folklorists have collected and classified the patterns and types of fairy tales (Aarne, Thompson 1964 ; Delarue, Hold 1957-1977). The historical and anthropological significance of fairy tales was first seriously studied by V. propp (2000) and K. Levi-Strauss (Levi-Strauss, 1973). This theme is developed in the works of N. Belmont (Belmont, 2002), J. Calame-Griaule (Calame-Griaule, 1984), M. Carrin (2002). Fairy tales also attracted the attention of psychologists who studied them from the point of view of psychoanalysis (B. Bettelheim 1960, M. Schneider 1980). The structural and semantic study of the fairy tale in the semiotic aspect was first undertaken by V. propp, laying the foundations of modern narratology (V. propp, 1998). In the 1970s, French philology tended to consider semiotics as a science of meanings: thus, the structural and semantic approach to the literary text involved the isolation of units of meaning at different levels and their analysis. Research in this area was conducted by both domestic (Meletinsky, Novik, Putilov, etc.) and foreign (Greymas, Kurtes, Coquet, Fontanius) scientists. Currently, the discursive study of the fairy tale, which takes into account both the structural (textual) aspect of the fairy tale and its connections with other texts and with the socio-discursive context, is also relevant. However, only a folk story has been so thoroughly studied, while the literary tale has been studied only from the point of view of literature (Kovtun 1999, Lipovetsky 1992, Bakhtin 1979). In recent years, some literary tales have been studied from the linguistic point of view of the text (Adam, Heidmann). The genre of the literary fairy tale, due to the vagueness of its borders, as well as a strong dependence on the individual style of the writer, has not been studied as thoroughly as the tale of folk fairies. Thus, the relevance of the work is determined by the need to study the French literary tale of the twentieth century as a genre, highlighting its inherent structural and semantic characteristics in relation to the folk (popular) tale. The study of specific tales by French writers as unique works is also important and promising.

Gendering Civil War

Abstract: Provides a new and original analysis on how Lebanese francophone women authors wrote about the Lebanese civil war The first book to study the intersection between narrative studies or narratology, trauma and gender in the context of non-western literature Examines Lebanese francophone novels by first- and second-generation women writers from the 1970s to today Explores novels that have never been studied before or received very little attention Offers in-depth analysis of theories and literary analysis Advances new theories on the body, narratology, and trauma Writers in contemporary Lebanon stand at the crossroads of challenging and often violent dynamics in a multi-ethnic postcolonial society where competing cultural and political forces present specific and pressing problems for women. This book examines French-language narratives published between the 1970s and the present day by Lebanese women writers focusing on the civil war of 1975-1991. Drawing on a corpus of writings by Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Etel Adnan, Evelyne Accad, Andrée Chedid, Hyam Yared, and Georgia Makhlouf, some of which has previously received little or no scholarly attention, the book examines in innovative ways the use of distinctive narrative forms to address inter-linked questions of violence, war trauma, and gender relations.

At the Margins: Silences in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Admiring Silence and The Last Gift

Abstract: This paper offers a reading of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Admiring Silence (1996) alongside The Last Gift (2011) with the view to exploring the signification and significance of silence. Using narratology as the guiding framework, the paper investigates how the two novels use literary strategies to represent silence as a code of meaning and meaning making while simultaneously calling this process into question for both the reading audiences of the novel as well as the embedded audiences in the stories. Both novels show a marked degree of interest in the question of silence as one way through which migrants navigate the intersection of their present and past lives. The stories deploy narratorial unreliability and use of multiple focalizations as modes of engaging with the characters’ silence. An analysis of the significance of these strategies in the narratives opens up possibilities of appreciating the heterogeneity of the migrant experience as narrated in the two novels from different voice positions some of which paradoxically involve the silencing of that very experience.