What is narrative? Ridvan Askin brings together aesthetics, contemporary North American fiction, Gilles Deleuze, narrative theory and the recent speculative turn to answer this question. Through this process, he develops a transcendental empiricist concept of narrative. Askin argues against the established consensus of narrative theory for an understanding of narrative as fundamentally nonhuman, unconscious and expressive.
This edited volume focuses on Anglo-American modernist fiction, offering challenging perspectives that consider modernism in the instances in which it transcends itself, moving, broadly speaking, towards postmodernist self-irony. As such, the contributions here discuss issues such as being in creation; narrativizing being and creation; the relation between being and narrative; the situation of being in narrative time and space; the relation between authority and narrative; possible authority over narrative and the authority of narrative; interaction between narrative and the other; the authority of the other over and within the narrative; and the inter-referentiality of text and author. Divided into two parts, “Towards High Modernism” and “After Modernism”, the book allows the reader to chronologically follow how authors’ relations to literature in general evolved with the changing world and new perspectives on the nature of reality. This book offers an insightful contribution to the on-going discussion on the ambiguities inherent in the concepts of author, narrative, and being, and will stimulate intellectual confrontation and circulation of ideas within the field.
Social movement scholars have become increasingly interested in the role of stories in contentious politics. Stories may facilitate the mobilization of activists and strengthen the resonance of their claims within public discourse and institutional politics. This book explores the role of narratives in building collective identity – a vital element in activists’ continued commitment. While often claimed important, the connection between narratives and movement identity remains understudied. Drawing on a rich pool of original data, the book’s analysis focusses on the Global Justice Movement (GJM), a movement known for its diversity of political perspectives. Based on a comparison of different national constellations of the GJM in Europe, the book demonstrates the centrality of activists’ narratives in forming and maintaining movement identity and in making the GJM more enduring.
This open access book considers the stories of adolescents and young adults from different regions of the world who use digital media as instruments and stages for storytelling, or who make the media the subject of story telling. These narratives discuss interconnectedness, self-staging, and managing boundaries. From the perspective of media and cultural research, they can be read as responses to the challenges of contemporary society. Providing empirical evidence and thought-provoking explanations, this book will be useful to students and scholars who wish to uncover how ongoing processes of cultural transformation are reflected in the thoughts and feelings of the internet generation.
In a world where story has become everything, organizations are finding it increasingly hard to compete. That's because stories can only take you so far. The real power lies in narratives. We are surrounded by noise. We are overwhelmed by information from social media, news and advertising. In this environment, it can be impossible for a brand, cause or individual to be heard. Organizations have traditionally used stories to try and connect with their audiences. But now, stories aren't enough. To be heard and to authentically connect to an audience, organizations need to embrace narrative. So what do we mean when we talk about narrative? In this book, the reader will learn what narrative is and why it is important. They will learn the conditions that give rise to a narrative. They will get a sense of the basic roles of the participants in the dance of narrative. We call them narrative "Initiators" and "Respondents." They will also learn about the elements of the existing narratives they live with, and are creating. By defining narrative, we help the reader see the narratives all around them. We then lay out the building blocks of narrative so the reader can think about their own narrative. Finally, we provide simple worksheets to guide the narrative-building process for organizations of any size. Our hope is that by walking readers through the narrative-building process, they will be more empowered to connect with their audiences and create authentic, lasting relationships.
A guide to the art of personal writing, by the author of Fierce Attachments and The End of the Novel of Love All narrative writing must pull from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver a bit of wisdom. In a story or a novel the "I" who tells this tale can be, and often is, an unreliable narrator but in nonfiction the reader must always be persuaded that the narrator is speaking truth. How does one pull from one's own boring, agitated self the truth-speaker who will tell the story a personal narrative needs to tell? That is the question The Situation and the Story asks--and answers. Taking us on a reading tour of some of the best memoirs and essays of the past hundred years, Gornick traces the changing idea of self that has dominated the century, and demonstrates the enduring truth-speaker to be found in the work of writers as diverse as Edmund Gosse, Joan Didion, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, or Marguerite Duras. This book, which grew out of fifteen years teaching in MFA programs, is itself a model of the lucid intelligence that has made Gornick one of our most admired writers of nonfiction. In it, she teaches us to write by teaching us how to read: how to recognize truth when we hear it in the writing of others and in our own.
The editors bring together an interdisciplinary and international group of creative researchers and theorists to examine the way the stories we tell create our identities. The contributors to this volume explore how, beginning in adolescence and young adulthood, narrative identities become the stories we live by.
What is the role of narrative in how people learn throughout their lives? Are there different patterns and forms of narrativity? How do they influence learning? Based on data gathered for the Learning Lives project, which sought to understand learning by questioning individuals about their life stories, this book seeks to define a new learning theory which focuses on the role of narrative and narration in learning. Through a number of detailed case-studies based on longitudinal interviews conducted over three and four-year periods with a wide range of life story informants, Narrative Learning highlights the role of narrative and narration in an individual’s learning and understanding of how they act in the world. The authors explore a domain of learning and human subjectivity which is vital but currently unexplored in learning and teaching and seek to re-position learning within the ongoing preoccupation with identity and agency. The ‘interior conversations’ whereby a person defines their personal thoughts and courses of action and creates their own stories and life missions, is situated at the heart of a person’s map of learning and understanding of their place in the world. The insights presented seek to show that most people spend a significant amount of time rehearsing and recounting their life-story, which becomes a strong influence on their actions and agency, and an important site of learning in itself. Narrative Learning seeks to shift the focus of learning from the prescriptivism of a strongly defined curriculum to accommodate personal narrative styles and thereby encourage engagement and motivation in the learning process. Hence the book has radical and far-reaching implications for existing Governmental policies on school curriculum. The book will be of particular interest to professionals, educational researchers, policy-makers, undergraduate and postgraduate learners and all of those involved with education theory, CPD, adult education and lifelong learning.
Introduction -- Ideology as narrative -- When skepticism became public -- Skeptics without borders -- Unpacking the genetic meta-narrative -- The social construction of climate science -- Ideological narratives and beyond in a post-truth world.
