Explores the interplay between artistic values and social, political, and moral concerns in writings by African American and Native American women.

Jordan Peterson has attracted a high level of attention. Controversies may bring people into contact with Peterson's work, but ideas are arguably what keep them there. Focusing on those ideas, this book explores Peterson’s answers to perennial questions. What is common to all humans, regardless of their background? Is complete knowledge ever possible? What would constitute a meaningful life? Why have humans evolved the capacity for intelligence? Should one treat others as individuals or as members of a group? Is a (...) single person powerless in the face of evil? What is the relation between speech, thought, and action? Why have religious myths and narratives figured so prominently in human history? Are the hierarchies we find in society good or bad? After devoting a chapter to each of these questions, Champagne unites the different strands of Peterson’s thinking in a handy summary. Champagne then spends the remaining third of the book articulating his main critical concerns. He argues that while building on tradition is inevitable and indeed desirable, Peterson’s individualist project is hindered by the non-revisable character and self-sacrificial content of religious belief. This engaging multidisciplinary study is ideal for those who know little about Peterson’s views, or for those who are familiar but want to see more clearly how Peterson’s views hang together. The debates spearheaded by Peterson are in full swing, so Myth, Meaning, and Antifragile Individualism should become a reference point for any serious engagement with Peterson’s ideas. (shrink)

I argue against two popular claims. The first is a descriptive, empirical thesis about the nature of ordinary human experience: ‘each of us constructs and lives a “narrative” . . . this narrative is us, our identities’ (Oliver Sacks); ‘self is a perpetually rewritten story . . . in the end, we become the autobiographical narratives by which we “tell about” our lives’ (Jerry Bruner); ‘we are all virtuoso novelists. . . . We try to make all of our material (...) cohere into a single good story. And that story is our autobiography. The chief fictional char- acter . . . of that autobiography is one’s self’ (Dan Dennett). The second is a normative, ethical claim: we ought to live our lives narratively, or as a story; a ‘basic condition of making sense of ourselves is that we grasp our lives in a narrative’ and have an understanding of our lives ‘as an unfolding story’ (Charles Taylor). A person ‘creates his identity [only] by forming an autobiographical narrative – a story of his life’, and must be in possession of a full and ‘explicit narrative [of his life] to develop fully as a person’ (Marya Schechtman). (shrink)

Does the self exist? If so, what is its nature? How long do selves last? Galen Strawson draws on literature and psychology as well as philosophy to discuss various ways we experience having or being a self. He argues that it is legitimate to say that there is such a thing as the self, distinct from the human being.

This article presents and discusses how theories inform social work practice and what impact this has on the professional-client relation, specifically how social work professionals perceive children and interpret their possibilities. Data for the analysis to come are drawn from a qualitative study of child welfare services in Norway. The aim of the article is to bring to light how theoretical knowledge as well as social workers´ personal experiences influence the professional work, and consequently parents´ and children’s opportunities to participate. (...) A main finding is that social workers´ interpretations are informed by underlying theoretical frameworks that engender a narrative reasoning, that is, the plots of the parents’ and the children’s past histories, as well as the current situation, provide sense and coherence to professional work and understanding. The analysis focuses on how the social workers perceive the children they deal with, particularly how they acknowledge children´s voices and participation in professional interaction. The empirical examples contribute to expand the horizon of professional practice, in terms of how theoretical perspectives influence and inform everyday practice with service users. (shrink)

With slogans such as ‘Tell the stories hidden in your data’ and ‘From data to clear, insightful content – Wordsmith automatically generates narratives on a massive scale that sound like a person crafted each one’, a series of companies currently market themselves on the ability to turn data into stories through Natural Language Generation techniques. The data interpretation and knowledge production process is here automated, while at the same time hailing narrativity as a fundamental human ability of meaning-making. Reading both (...) the marketing rhetoric and the functionality of the automated narrative services through narrative theory allows for a contextualization of the rhetoric flourishing in Big Data discourse. Building upon case material obtained from companies such as Arria NLG, Automated Insights, Narrativa, Narrative Science, and Yseop, this article argues that what might be seen as a ‘re-turn’ of narrative as a form of knowledge production that can make sense of large data sets inscribes itself in – but also rearticulates – an ongoing debate about what narrative entails. Methodological considerations are thus raised on the one hand about the insights to be gained for critical data studies by turning to literary theory, and on the other hand about how automated technologies may inform our understanding of narrative as a faculty of human meaning-making. (shrink)

This article discusses an epistemological problem faced by causal explanations of action and a proposed solution. The problem is to justify why one particular reason rather than another is specified as causally efficacious. It is argued that the problem arises independently of one’s preferred conception of singular causal claims, psychological and psychophysical generalizations, and our folk-psychological competence. The proposed fallibilist solution involves the supplementation of the reason given by narratives that contextualize it and provide additional criteria for justifying the causal (...) claim. It is argued that narratives have a distinctive structure that can afford the justification of causal attributions without sui generis powers of narrative explanation having to be invoked. (shrink)

Folk stories featuring prosocial content are ubiquitous across cultures. One explanation for the ubiquity of such stories is that stories teach people about the local socioecology, including norms of prosociality, and stories featuring prosocial content may increase generosity in listeners. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of 185 Hadza hunter-gatherers. We read participants a story in which the main character either swims with another person (control story) or rescues him from drowning (prosocial story). After hearing the story, participants played (...) a dictator game with dried meat sticks and then were given a recall test of facts presented in the story. There was moderate evidence for a small effect of the prosocial story: participants who heard the prosocial story gave an estimated 0.22 [90% HDI: −0.12–0.57] more meat sticks than those who heard the control story. However, the association between generosity and sex, marital status, and region of residence was stronger; men gave more than women, unmarried participants gave more than married participants, and participants living in a region with more exposure to markets gave more than participants living further from markets. There was no evidence that the prosocial story was more easily recalled than the control story. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that prosocial stories can increase prosociality in listeners, though the effect of hearing a single story is small. (shrink)

This article sets out to critically examine the accounts of well-being produced by a middle-aged Swiss woman living in precarious prosperity. By taking on a feminist reading of the narrative on well-being, the article challenges the taken for granted assumption of the powerful agent in thriving societies. Insights from literature on happiness in nations and gender beliefs enabled addressing the woman’s capability to exert agency, while acknowledging the influence of the context in which narratives are embedded. In addition, the presence (...) of a non-national interviewer appears to be an incentive for the interviewee’s compliance with cultural meta-narratives. The approach of well-being as ‘agential flourishing’ proved helpful in assessing the woman’s capability on a gendered career path in atypical employment to deal with precariousness. (shrink)

The article suggests a new framework for the structural analysis of political narratives using the concept of ‘concise narrative’. These are segments of a speech that contain its entire temporal range in a few paragraphs. Based on the analysis of Israeli ministerial discourse during the early years of the state, the article argues that these ‘concise narratives’ can shed light on the infrastructure of political narratives. A study of ‘concise narratives’ can also illuminate how political values, identities and ideologies are (...) combined with day-to-day politics while being transferred from the speaker to his audience. The epilogue examines the intertextual relations between different political narratives, focusing on the transition of ‘concise narratives’ from the early days of Israeli politics to contemporary political discourse. (shrink)

Psychologists investigating dreams in non-Western cultures have generally not considered the meanings of dreams within the unique meaning-structure of the person in his or her societal context. The study was concerned with explicating the indigenous system of dream interpretation of the Xhosa-speaking people, as revealed by acknowledged dream experts, and elaborating upon the life-world of the participants. Fifty dreams and their interpretations were collected from participants, who were traditional healers and their clients. A phenomenological methodology was adopted in explicating the (...) data. Themes explicated included : the physiognomy of the dreamer's life-world as revealed by significant dreams, the interpretation of significant dreams as revealed through action, and human bodiliness as revealed in dream interpretations. The participants' approach to dreams is not based upon an explicit theory, but upon an immediate and pathic understanding of the dream phenomenon. The understanding is based upon the interpreter's concrete understanding of the life-world, which includes the possibility of cosmic integration and continuity between personal and trans-personal realms of being. (shrink)

Physical movement as a cohesive rhythmic mediumfor better understanding the qualities of livedexperience, keeps us intimately connected toour selves, others and our environment.Incorporating elements of evocativeautoethnography (Ellis, 1997), this workemploys the implicated reading (Pearce, 1997)of the authors' co-constructed body narrativeas a necessary analytical and representationaldevice for better understanding the embodiedand relational qualities of research. Pullingfrom Dewey's theories of naturalism,qualitative thought, and aesthetics,researchers relive and re-present theirmovement (running) experience as practice forembodied approaches to more authentic research.In the process, researchers discover thatrunning (...) as a shared rhythmical threadilluminated intersections in their lives andtheir research, nurtured universal qualities ofembodied experience often unexplored inresearch, and served as kinesthetic practicefor more fully understanding the contextualqualities of experience that informunderstanding. (shrink)

The aim of this research was to explore the elements that configure the quality of care among three Mexican same-sex planned families: two female-parented families (through donor insemination) and a male-parented one (through adoption). The first family consisted of two mothers and a 3-year-old daughter; the second one had two mothers and a 1.5-year-old set of boy twins and the third family consisted of two fathers and a 2-year-old girl. It was assumed that Ainsworth’s notions of quality of care organization (...) are useful in order to understand caregiver-child attachment relationships, regardless of the parents’ sexual orientation. A collective case study was selected due to the fact that these families shared their “unconventionality” (i.e. parents were not heterosexual) and the fact that they were planned, but each one constituted a particular case with a unique configuration. Four trained independent observers used the q-sort methodology (Maternal Behavior Q-Sort and Attachment Q-Sort) to describe parents’ and children’s behavior, respectively. The findings showed that parents were highly sensitive and all children used them as a secure base. To provide an in-depth examination of which elements configure the quality of care, a semi-structured interview with each parent was carried out. Through a thematic analysis, an over-arching theme named Affections and Emotions was identified, together with six subthemes: 1) Creating an affective environment; 2) Being available; 3) Acknowledging and expressing emotions; 4) Perceiving, interpreting and responding adequately to the child’s real self; 5) Taking the child’s perspective into account; and 6) Agreeing on roles and dividing the tasks. In order to showcase the particular configuration of gay parenting, the male-headed family narrative is reported in detail, because gay parents have been perceived as violating traditional gender roles as well as the hegemonic model of masculinity. The findings were consistent with the notion of quality of care as proposed by Ainsworth and her collaborators. The implications of the methodological device and research regarding same-sex planned families are discussed so as to understand the organization of the caregiving environment. (shrink)

Over the last few decades there has been a strong narrative turn within the humanities and social sciences in general and educational studies in particular. Especially Jerome Bruner’s theory of narrative as a specific ‘mode of knowing’ was very important for this growing body of work. To understand how the narrative mode works Bruner proposes to study narratives ‘at their far reach’—as an art form—and on several occasions he refers to the dramatistic pentad as an important method for ‘unpacking’ narratives. (...) The pentad proposed by Bruner to study narratives was developed by the American philosopher and rhetorician Kenneth Burke and is embedded in his general linguistic theory of dramatism. From an educational perspective Bruner’s reference to the work of Burke has not been elaborated upon thus far. In this paper we aim to take Bruner’s suggestion at hand and explore how his educational theory of narrative as a mode of knowing can indeed be enriched by Kenneth Burke’s theory and method of dramatism. We claim that specifically the rhetorical framework that is developed by dramatism offers an important perspective about perspectives for education in a context that is increasingly confronted with a plurality of interpretive frameworks. (shrink)

In our research and teaching we explore the value and the place of rhetoric in education. From a theoretical perspective we situate our work in different disciplines, inspired by major ‘turns’: linguistic, cultural, anthropological/ethnographic, interpretive, semiotic, narrative, literary, rhetorical etc. In this article we engage in the discussion about what all these turns might entail for education by elaborating on what it implies to read the world as a ‘text'—as is central in a semiotic approach—and by introducing new rhetoric in (...) general, and the work of the literary critic and rhetorician Kenneth Burke in particular, as a possible theoretical and methodological resource. We illustrate its application in the analysis of a fictional narrative. Our aim is to explore how an understanding of education as rhetoric can be integrated into the teacher education curriculum. (shrink)

Violence in sexual-affective relationships among teens and young people is recognized as a social, educational, and health problem that has increased worldwide in recent years. Educational institutions, as central developmental contexts in adolescence, are key in preventing and responding to gender violence through implementing successful actions. In order to scientifically support that task, the research reported in this article presents and discusses a psycho-educational intervention focused on autobiographical memory reconstruction that proved to be successful in raising young women’s critical consciousness (...) about the force of the coercive dominant discourse upon sexual-affective experiences and memories. We examined among a sample of young women (n = 32, age range 17-30) whether reading a scientific text about love, the Radical Love book, modified autobiographical memories of violent sexual-affective relationships in line with preventing future victimization. This group was compared with a control group (n = 31, age range 17-30). Memory reports were collected before and after the reading and coded to analyze their content, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Memory quality features were assessed with the Memory Quality Questionnaire. A focus group was also conducted to examine the personal impact of the intervention on participants. Compared with controls, the experimental group had stronger critical memories (of episodes involving violence), an average decrease in positive emotions induced by recall, and an average increase in negative emotions. The results show the effectiveness of the reading intervention designed in relation to gender violence prevention, as they indicate the ability of the psycho-educational action to debilitate the force of the coercive dominant discourse in young women’s memories. The findings both advance knowledge on the reconstructive nature of autobiographical memories of violent sexual-affective relationships in female youth and indicate the potential of memory-based interventions as an instrument to prevent and reduce gender violence in school contexts. Teachers and teaching staff, and educational psychologists, among others, can benefit from these results by expanding the tools they have to address gender violence among female adolescents and youth. (shrink)

The purpose of this inquiry is to explore the experience of Borderline Personality Disorder with the aim of developing a more liberating approach to its diagnosis and treatment. Eight participants diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder were recruited from a psychiatric hospital operated by the Surrey and Borders NHS Trust and an outpatient daycentre based in London, United Kingdom. A narrative approach to methodology was employed to collect and analyse the participants’ life-stories. Themes to emerge from the participant’s narratives were found (...) to coincide with R.D. Laing’s concept of ontological insecurity. Ontological insecurity describes a number of aspects of the participant’s distress. To conclude, some general implications of this research for psychotherapy are briefly explored. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the narrative aspect of Seneca’s idea of self-transformation. It compares Seneca’s viewpoint with some modern notions of the narrative self to highlight some parallels and significant differences between the ancient and modern conceptions and it establishes the reading of some parts of De Brev. Vit. in the context of other passages as concerned with the narrative self. The paper argues, amongst other points, that in Ep. 83.1–3, Seneca extends the practice of meditatio (ethically directed self-examination) by (...) incorporating the construction of a narrative self into this process, in dual roles, as examiner and examined. It concludes that Seneca expected us to avail ourselves of a similar self-assessment based on a dialogue with philosophical texts. (shrink)

Doing research on cancer patients often involves painful journeys through the processes of involvement and detachment with research settings and participants. It is a self-transforming event to see close cared for people die. Yet frequently these experiences remain unreported in academic writing. The present article attempts to depict the narratives of attachment in the context of terminal illness and detachment as a consequence of death of the research participant, Jabbar, to reflect on such a journey. It focuses on the formation (...) of a relationship beyond the boundaries of the purposes of research to reflect on two related issues, first, the nature of attachments and relationship building that goes in parallel to the formal dimensions of the research, and second, emotions, self-transformation and contextual embeddedness of doing research with terminally ill cancer patients. (shrink)

Narrative views of the self argue that we constitute our self in self-narratives. Embodied views hold that our self is shaped through embodied experiences. In that case, what is the relation between embodiment and narrativity in the process of self-constitution? The question demands a clear definition of embodiment, but existing studies remains unclear on this point (section 2). We offer a correction to this situation by drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of the body that highlights its habituality. On this account, the (...) body has an inherent tendency to cultivate an organization of habits through its history of engagement with the world (section 3). Next, we explore its role in narrative self-constitution by distinguishing between two aspects of the narrative self, the narrated I and the narrating I (section 4). We argue on phenomenological grounds that self-narratives are informed by bodily perspectives in both respects. Furthermore, a focus on the habituality of the body allows for a better explanation of self-constitution than those based on implicit self-narratives (section 5). For these phenomenological and theoretical reasons, we conclude that narrative self-constitution is an embodied and embedded practice (section 6). (shrink)

The article explores how a new dimension of emotion – depth – is crucially important for a better understanding of emotion and its connection to rationality. It begins by identifying that depth is trapped in a circularity in which deep emotions are important because they refer to deep and important aspects of people’s lives. Following Danto’s discussion of deep interpretation (1981), it suggests that it is the contrast between deep and superficial that grants emotional perspective and the ability to identify (...) levels of emotional depth. After arguing that the emotional perspective is grasped by the narrative structure of emotion, it raises several objections that provide the ground to establish a difference between deep and profound. Then the paper concludes that the meaning of emotional depth is only fully understood in the ongoing contrast with the superficial described before, and states how further research on depth of emotion may provide the key to understanding the ambivalent status of emotions regarding their link to rationality. (shrink)

Instruction in the arts of life is something other than conveying information about them. It is a matter of communication and participation in values of life by means of imagination, and works of art are the most intimate and energetic means of aiding individuals to share in the arts of living. In teaching for aesthetic experience, I ask my students, most of whom are classroom teachers, to bring their lived experiences to each encounter with a work of art to determine (...) the meaning and value for their lives. Central to this engagement is the development of the skills of aesthetic perception and response through the analysis of form and content in dance, drama, music, and the visual arts.2 To provide a.. (shrink)

Psychotherapy is commonly described as a “talking cure,” a treatment method that operates through linguistic action and interaction. The operative specifics of therapeutic language use, however, are insufficiently understood, mainly due to a multitude of disparate approaches that advance different notions of what “talking” means and what “cure” implies in the respective context. Accordingly, a clarification of the basic theoretical structure of “talking cure models,” i.e., models that describe therapeutic processes with a focus on language use, is a desideratum of (...) language-oriented psychotherapy research. Against this background the present paper suggests a theoretical framework of analysis which distinguishes four basic components of “talking cure models”: (1) a foundational theory (which suggests how linguistic activity can affect and transform human experience), (2) an experiential problem state (which defines the problem or pathology of the patient), (3) a curative linguistic activity (which defines linguistic activities that are supposed to effectuate a curative transformation of the experiential problem state), and (4) a change mechanism (which defines the processes and effects involved in such transformations). The purpose of the framework is to establish a terminological foundation that allows for systematically reconstructing basic properties and operative mechanisms of “talking cure models.” To demonstrate the applicability and utility of the framework, five distinct “talking cure models” which spell out the details of curative “talking” processes in terms of (1) catharsis, (2) symbolization, (3) narrative, (4) metaphor, and (5) neurocognitive inhibition are introduced and discussed in terms of the framework components. In summary, we hope that our framework will prove useful for the objective of clarifying the theoretical underpinnings of language-oriented psychotherapy research and help to establish a more comprehensive understanding of how curative language use contributes to the process of ther-apeutic change. (shrink)

In “Of Personal Identity”, Hume attempts to understand why we ordinarily believe in persistent selves. He proposes that this ontological commitment depends on illusions and fictions: the imagination tricks us into supposing that an unchanging core self remains static through the flux and change of experience. Recent work in cognitive science provides a good deal of support for Hume’s hypothesis that common beliefs about the self are founded on psychological biases rather than rational insight or evidence. We naturally believe in (...) personal persistence, according to this emerging research, because we are prone to categorize the world in terms of hidden essences and structure our lives in terms of whole life stories. (shrink)

Immigrant women to Western Europe, especially those originating from Islamic countries, have been turned into icons of cultural difference by the general discourse on immigration. They are not recognized as actors in a changing society, just as society's changes through immigrants tend to be denied. This obscures the work and the accomplishments of women in the course of their immigration. Focusing on a biographical interview with a Turkish woman who came to Germany as a ‘guest worker’ in 1972, the social (...) history of this labour migration is outlined. Instances of ‘biographical work’ in the interview are discussed, pointing out the transformation potential of immigrant women's biographies. (shrink)

This article presents an analysis of how a male convert to Islam incorporates events from his life history into a narrative structure in order to construct and maintain a Muslim identity. The study focuses on how the individual and in particular a person's life history becomes social and universal, and how the social and universal becomes particularized and individualized, in the narration of life. The results of the analysis showed that the valued endpoint determines the selection and ordering of different (...) episodes, and the causal connections that are made between them. Many episodes in this convert's life story is similar to other converts' narratives, for example, descriptions of absent significant others during childhood, an inclusion of a Christian phase in life, and the importance attributed to the Qur'an in the process of conversion. The incorporation of these episodes in one's life story and the way the narratives are structured are interpreted as influences from collective narratives. Moreover, the analysis revealed that the selected episodes have important social, individualizing and sedative functions in the flux of discourses in postmodern society. Thus, the individual's Muslim identity is an amalgamation of the particular and the universal and the importance of the narratives lies in the fact that they can integrate particular experiences into a universal structure that gives them a meaning. (shrink)

The move in moral theory toward listening to and accommodating “experience” requires that we hear its diversity, take a closer look at its nature, and ask how it should function in moral deliberation.

The successful delivery of patient-centered care hinges on clinical affiliation for patients' personal needs and experiences. Narrative competence is a mode of thinking and set of actions that widens the clinical gaze beyond logico-scientific cognition. In this article, we investigate a tool that enables clinicians to rehearse their skills in narrative competence. We apply the narrative competence framework developed by the founding practitioners of narrative medicine to personal accounts of illness and patienthood published on the Internet. We describe our use (...) of the five-point framework in the close reading of 214 accounts by people with the life-threatening skin cancer melanoma. (shrink)

In a response to critiques of his On the Postcolony in a 2006 African Identities article, Achille Mbembe declared that the book was written at a time when the study of Africa was caught in a dramatic analytical gridlock. Traditional critical frameworks and discourses on the condition of postcolonial Africa seemed inadequate and ineffectual. Marxian analysis of colonization and its consequences is specifically isolated as one such impotent tool of critical analysis. As an alternative to these “failed” traditional paradigms, Mbembe (...) launches into a deconstructive experimental hermeneutic that leads him to the explication of colonial alterity in libidinal, representational and semiotically analogous language, as exhibited in On the Postcolony. This article challenges the efficacy of this post-structuralist semiotics and phenomenological extrapolations as the proposed way out of his perceived “cul-de-sac” in African postcolonial self-imagination. In particular, his dismissal of Marxian theory is turned... (shrink)

Narrative theories currently dominate our understanding of how selfhood is constituted and concretely individuated throughout personal history. Despite this success, the narrative perspective has recently been exposed to a range of critiques. Whilst these critiques have been effective in pointing out the shortcomings of narrative theories of selfhood, they have been less willing and able to suggest alternative ways of understanding personal history. In this article, I assess the criticisms and argue that an adequate phenomenology of personal history must also (...) go beyond narrative. Drawing on a distinction between history and narrative, I outline an account of historical becoming through a process of sedimentation and a rich notion of what I call historical selfhood on an embodied level. Five embodied existentials are suggested, sketching a preliminary understanding of how selves are concretely individuated on a pre-narrative level. (shrink)

This paper has three aims. The first is to subject to critical analysis the intractable debate between realists and anti-realists about the status of the so-called self, a debate that traverses various academic disciplines and discursive fields. Realism about selves has fallen on hard times of late, and the second aim of this paper is to get it back on track. Traditional substantive conceptions of the self contain ontological baggage that many moderns will be loath to carry. This paper settles (...) for a more moderate aim, a “softer” kind of self-realism derived from an unlikely source—Hume—and outlines the Humean moral self and its possible advantages. The third and subsidiary aim is to challenge the view that recent “narrative” conceptions of selfhood have made the old realism versus anti-realism debate redundant. “Narrativism” about selves turns out to do little more than recycle old arguments in fancy new packages. (shrink)

Creating one's identity is an on-going process, which is greatly dependent on language. Having this idea as a starting point in the study of religiosity, sharing self-reported experiences can be seen as an integral part in constructing one's religious identity and personal conviction. In this article, I would like to present the idea of bringing together narrative research and the psychological approach to the study of religious experience with the help of personal experience stories about God's guidance told by Christian (...) believers who are members of a charismatic revival movement. (shrink)

The article presents the object and results of a study which combines the psychology of religion and folkloristics in the form of a qualitative analysis of empirical ethnographic material compiled from sources in a local neo-charismatic congregation called the ‘Word of Life’. Personal narrative is discussed as a genre which represents the collective tradition of a religious community. It is a socially-learned speech act and a means of interpreting and sharing religious experience, thus constructing and confirming the faith of the (...) community, both individually and collectively. In the neo-charismatic tradition, everyday speech draws on a literal tradition as well as on socially-shared narrative genres such as ritual testimonies, prophecies, sermons and casual, personal narratives of co-believers. The faith-creative power of these stories can be found in their performative utterances and evaluative structures as well as in non-communication. (shrink)

In recent years, researchers within science education have started to consider the impact of narrative upon teaching and learning in science. This article investigates the possibilities of interactive fiction as a means by which students can be provided with feedback on their understanding in science, and explores the mechanisms which might allow learning from this. Through a review of literature around the use of narrative in science education, we have produced a list of recommendations that might guide the development of (...) interactive fiction within science education. These recommendations are tested through a small-scale study in which an interactive fiction book was written around Newton’s laws, and then tested with 27, 16- and 17-year-old chemistry students, eight of whom also study post-compulsory physics. The interactive fiction developed is based upon the well-established Force Concept Inventory and this allowed the analysis of the progression of student understanding. We found that, upon reading the book, there was a significant positive effect size on the understanding of students who do not study advanced physics. The gains for those who do study post-compulsory physics were not statistically significant. The participants’ report of enjoyment is also discussed. (shrink)

This article identifies the dominant public narrative of AIDS in Malawi through an analysis of qualitative interview data and policy and intervention materials. The public narrative creates distinctions between “risky” and “healthy” sex that organize HIV prevention efforts around moral categories, rather than relative risk. These distinctions oppose images of backward, ignorant villagers to the protective power of “love matches”. The analysis demonstrates that the public narrative and corresponding prevention efforts only make sense in connection with the patently false assumption (...) that love, heterosexuality, and modernity effectively protect individuals from HIV. This research brings to light the unspoken assumptions of modernity in the “charmed circle” of heteronormativity, as well as the need to consider the workings of heteronormativity in studies of modernization and globalization. Furthermore, it highlights individualistic and oversimplified analytic models currently directing HIV prevention efforts and points to potentially more effective strategies. (shrink)

In 1997, David Foster Wallace published “The Depressed Person,” a short story about a privileged, deeply unhappy woman dedicated to exploring and recounting the texture and etiology of her chronic depression. This essay argues that “The Depressed Person” challenges the long-standing assumption that narrativizing the pain of depression is crucial to overcoming it, and the contemporary view that empathic responses from others promote recovery of the depressed. Taken together, these two critiques inform Wallace’s portrayal of chronic depression as an interactive (...) phenomenon that is articulated, sustained, and regenerated through problematic contexts of interaction. Written at a time when public knowledge of and talk about depression was surging, “The Depressed Person” holds an important, if presently under-recognized place, in the expansive corpus of depression texts that emerged in the 1990s. (shrink)

Every year, thousands of undocumented Mexican workers enter the United States. Their presence, together with the settlement of undocumented and legal immigrants from many other countries, constitutes the source of one of the most persistent ideological conflicts in American history: the conflict over immigrants' rights. Official discourses in many cases identify being Hispanic with poor performance at school, drug abuse, poverty and violence. However, aside from mainstream images of who immigrants are, little research has been done on the identity that (...) immigrants themselves build and project, and on the processes that affect the formation of such identity. In this article I investigate identity through discourse analysis, looking specifically at linguistic strategies used by a group of undocumented Mexican immigrants to identify characters in storytelling. I argue that immigrants use ethnic identity as a central identification category for self and others in their stories, showing that ethnic mentions are widespread in story orientations, and that they exhibit different degrees and types of relevance depending on their relationship with the interactional context and/or the story world. Ethnic mentions are used in stories to affirm certain characteristics of one's own identity and of the identity of others via the presentation and evaluation of behaviors. In argumentative stories disputable behaviors are openly attributed to out groups, and so these stories help speakers to build images of who they are and how they stand in relation to others. In stories of personal experience, the connections between identities and behaviors are implicit, but they still respond to socially established expectations. Thus, individual stories also contribute to build those expectations about how belonging to certain ethnic groups may affect action in particular domains of life. The pervasiveness of ethnic identification in immigrant stories cannot be understood without resorting to wider social processes that frame the immigration experience of undocumented Mexican workers. In this case, I stress the importance of the pressure that the ideology of race and ethnicity, enacted through public discourse at all levels, exerts on every individual in American society. (shrink)

Online digital archives have allowed researchers to explore the past as never before. Arguably without the search technology offered by online digital archives the lives of many individuals would have remained in obscurity. Furthermore, the level of detail that can be quickly gleaned about individuals from the past, particularly when multiple digital archives are accessed, raises ethical questions. For example, when reporting findings researchers could be disclosing personal information that is unknown to descendants, and if it relates to a sensitive (...) topic then there is the potential for the researcher to cause distress. However, the rapid growth in digital archives has meant there has been little consideration of what ethical concerns digital archives might generate. This article reflects upon research using one digital archive and the importance of the researcher’s relationship with the material they retrieve when searching this type of source. (shrink)

This article presents a critical assesment of Dennett’s narrative self theory as a personal identity theory. First it is contextualized in regard to the debate on personal identity in the decade of 1980, then Dennett’s theory is presented in the light of Strawson’s analysis of Narrativity, the criticisms received by Dennett’s theory and by narrative theories in general are put in relationship, and finally it is shown how Dennett’s theory could help the actual supporters of narrative identity theories to reformulate (...) their arguments in defense to the received criticisms. Thus I hope to contribute to a better understanding of Dennett’s theory and to claim for its relevance in the actual debate about personal identity in analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Modernity seems to bring a type of relationship with life whereby life appears to be distant. Individuals may mitigate this distance by attaining a meaningful life, but this requires time, decisions and a purpose. In the late modern context, these dimensions – time, decisions and vital purposes – appear to be shaped in a way that further increases this remoteness. This paper analyses how the narratives associated with these three dimensions foster a way of understanding them that restricts the relationship (...) which individuals build with their own lives. The late-modern remoteness from life may stem from experiencing a lifetime without significant time, decisions without real choice and particular forms of self-fulfilment that misappropriate the relationship with life. (shrink)

North American writer Joan Didion’s eloquent testimonial speaks to the significance of storytelling in our lives. Personal storiesmake our lives meaningful. Part of this is because our stories, wittingly or not, become the means through which we fashion our identities for listeners. Or, as scholars from many disciplines have argued, identity and selfhoodare narrative accomplishments. In this formulation, an individual constructs a sense of self by telling stories or “personal narratives,” which describe “the evolution of an individual life over time (...) and in social context” (Maynes et al. in Telling stories: the use of personal narratives in the social sciences and in history. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2008, 2). While personal narratives contain unique autobiographical elements, the logics of storytelling and the values and beliefs of a particular time and place also influence the kinds of stories people tell. As feminist historian Mary Jo Maynes and her coauthors argue: “The stories that people tell about their lives are never simply individual, but are told in historically specific times and settings and draw on the rules and models in circulation that govern how story elements link together in narrative logics” (2008, 2). Put another way, even the most idiosyncratic story is always in some way social: what narrators decide to tell is often guided by the expectations of audiences (real or imagined); the conventions of various genres (such as life history or autobiography); as well as the broader cultural narratives located in particular historical times and places. In this light, personal narratives at once provide evidence of a storyteller’s viewpoint and experiences as well as the social and cultural milieu in which they live. (shrink)

As a doctor and practitioner researcher, I use comics as a research method. This graphic article is an attempt to convince you, the academy and perhaps myself, that comics are research.

The topic of this book is the thinking in which we engage when we reflectively decide what to do, and when we reflectively reach conclusions as to the correct answers to questions. The main objective is to identify a way of looking at ourselves and at our deliberations that is adequate to our lives. It must accommodate both our conception of ourselves as free, rational and self-directed subjects, and our feeling that we deliberate freely. It must also identify a place (...) for us that will feel like home, doing justice to our status as subjects, within the world as we relate to it when we practise the natural sciences. The central claims are not about how we are, but about how we should look at ourselves. A key task is to show that this limited ambition, which is forced on us by the need to avoid metaphysical implausibility, nonetheless allows us to develop a position that has sufficient strength to do its work. The aim is to show something that is all too easily taken for granted. This is that we can limit ourselves to a strictly naturalistic ontology, while still having access to a generous idiom that allows us to speak of ourselves as free in the exercise of our rationality. (shrink)