NEIL MacCORMICK
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199571246
- eISBN:
- 9780191713064
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571246.003.0011
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
This chapter deals with some of the matters that arise under the ‘problem of proof’. The issue considered is how it is possible to establish true or at least acceptable accounts of past events. It ...
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This chapter deals with some of the matters that arise under the ‘problem of proof’. The issue considered is how it is possible to establish true or at least acceptable accounts of past events. It argues that a certain conception of coherence is essential to the process of proving what was done or what happened, namely ‘narrative coherence’.Less
This chapter deals with some of the matters that arise under the ‘problem of proof’. The issue considered is how it is possible to establish true or at least acceptable accounts of past events. It argues that a certain conception of coherence is essential to the process of proving what was done or what happened, namely ‘narrative coherence’.
Douglas V. Porpora
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195134919
- eISBN:
- 9780199834563
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195134915.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Explores the ways in which religious experience and other kinds of peak experience lend a narrative coherence to the whole of life and thus become resources for self‐making. Included among the ...
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Explores the ways in which religious experience and other kinds of peak experience lend a narrative coherence to the whole of life and thus become resources for self‐making. Included among the experiences investigated are an Eastern experience of cosmic consciousness and a Christian fundamentalist experience of salvation.Less
Explores the ways in which religious experience and other kinds of peak experience lend a narrative coherence to the whole of life and thus become resources for self‐making. Included among the experiences investigated are an Eastern experience of cosmic consciousness and a Christian fundamentalist experience of salvation.
Jessica Martin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198270157
- eISBN:
- 9780191683930
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270157.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature, History of Christianity
This book argues that Walton's practice, in his Lives, was crucial in shaping modern expectations of biography: how it should be organised, how it should treat evidence, how seriously it should ...
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This book argues that Walton's practice, in his Lives, was crucial in shaping modern expectations of biography: how it should be organised, how it should treat evidence, how seriously it should regard narrative coherence, and most particularly in the modern expectation of an intimate relationship between author, reader, and subject. This book considers Walton's biographical ethics in relation to the tributary genres influencing him as they emerged from post-Reformation commendatory practice after 1546, most particularly classical funeral oratory and the emergent Protestant funeral sermon, the Plutarchan parallel, the didactic Character, martyrological narrative, and finally Walton's direct model, the exemplary biographical commemoration of the conformist minister. The book considers how Walton develops his literary inheritance, arguing that his lay status required him to initiate a different kind of mediation between reader and subject from the straightforwardly imitative. Walton presents himself as a channel for the words and acts of an authoritative subject, a preference implicitly followed both in his stress on personal connections with his subjects (which spectacularly particularizes his portraits) and in his very extensive use of their own writings. His Lives attempt posthumous autobiography. They are also considered as prominent and accomplished examples of the many politically intended narratives which exploit a consensual interpretation of private virtue to support, without having to argue for, a sectarian interpretation of public rectitude.Less
This book argues that Walton's practice, in his Lives, was crucial in shaping modern expectations of biography: how it should be organised, how it should treat evidence, how seriously it should regard narrative coherence, and most particularly in the modern expectation of an intimate relationship between author, reader, and subject. This book considers Walton's biographical ethics in relation to the tributary genres influencing him as they emerged from post-Reformation commendatory practice after 1546, most particularly classical funeral oratory and the emergent Protestant funeral sermon, the Plutarchan parallel, the didactic Character, martyrological narrative, and finally Walton's direct model, the exemplary biographical commemoration of the conformist minister. The book considers how Walton develops his literary inheritance, arguing that his lay status required him to initiate a different kind of mediation between reader and subject from the straightforwardly imitative. Walton presents himself as a channel for the words and acts of an authoritative subject, a preference implicitly followed both in his stress on personal connections with his subjects (which spectacularly particularizes his portraits) and in his very extensive use of their own writings. His Lives attempt posthumous autobiography. They are also considered as prominent and accomplished examples of the many politically intended narratives which exploit a consensual interpretation of private virtue to support, without having to argue for, a sectarian interpretation of public rectitude.
Sara Cobb
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199826209
- eISBN:
- 9780199345335
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826209.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter describes the structural features of conflict narratives, including emplotment, causality, character roles, voice, and moral themes, drawing on a host of narrative theorists, including ...
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This chapter describes the structural features of conflict narratives, including emplotment, causality, character roles, voice, and moral themes, drawing on a host of narrative theorists, including (White, 1987; Ricoeur, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c; Bakhtin, 1982; Epston & M. White, 1990; Mattingly, 1998; Nelson, 2001).The application of narrative theory, toward the emergence of a definition of “conflict narrative” moves past the use of “narrative” for current analysis of specific conflicts, such as Rotberg (2006) which treats narrative as a “carrier” for identity, perceptions, and relational history; rather, conflict narrative is a “living” meaning structure that constitutes, rather than reflects, history, subjectivity, institutions, and discourse itself. Both the structure and the dynamical processes of conflict narratives are explored, using the conflict over the forest concessions in the Mirador Basin of Guatemala as a context for exploring these processes.Less
This chapter describes the structural features of conflict narratives, including emplotment, causality, character roles, voice, and moral themes, drawing on a host of narrative theorists, including (White, 1987; Ricoeur, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c; Bakhtin, 1982; Epston & M. White, 1990; Mattingly, 1998; Nelson, 2001).The application of narrative theory, toward the emergence of a definition of “conflict narrative” moves past the use of “narrative” for current analysis of specific conflicts, such as Rotberg (2006) which treats narrative as a “carrier” for identity, perceptions, and relational history; rather, conflict narrative is a “living” meaning structure that constitutes, rather than reflects, history, subjectivity, institutions, and discourse itself. Both the structure and the dynamical processes of conflict narratives are explored, using the conflict over the forest concessions in the Mirador Basin of Guatemala as a context for exploring these processes.
Mary-Ann Constantine and Gerald Porter
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262887
- eISBN:
- 9780191734441
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262887.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This book is about traditional songs. Folk song scholarship was originally obsessed with notions of completeness and narrative coherence; yet field notebooks and recordings (and, increasingly, ...
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This book is about traditional songs. Folk song scholarship was originally obsessed with notions of completeness and narrative coherence; yet field notebooks and recordings (and, increasingly, publications) overwhelmingly suggest that apparently ‘broken’ and drastically shortened versions of songs are not perceived as incomplete by those who sing them. This study turns the focus on these ‘dog-ends’ of oral tradition, and looks closely at how very short texts convey meaning in performance by working the audience's knowledge of a highly allusive idiom. What emerges is the tenacity of meaning in the connotative and metaphorical language of traditional song, and the extraordinary adaptability of songs in different cultural contexts. Such pieces have a strong metonymic force: they should not be seen as residual ‘last leaves’ of a once complete tradition, but as dynamic elements in the process of oral transmission. Not all song fragments remain in their natural environment, and this book also explores relocations and dislocations as songs are adapted to new contexts: a ballad of love and death is used to count pins in lace-making, song-snippets trail subversive meanings in the novels of Charles Dickens. Because they are variable and elusive to dating, songs have had little attention from the literary establishment: the authors of this book show both how certain critical approaches can be fruitfully applied to song texts, and how concepts from studies in oral traditions prefigure aspects of contemporary critical theory. Coverage includes English, Welsh, Breton, American, and Finnish songs.Less
This book is about traditional songs. Folk song scholarship was originally obsessed with notions of completeness and narrative coherence; yet field notebooks and recordings (and, increasingly, publications) overwhelmingly suggest that apparently ‘broken’ and drastically shortened versions of songs are not perceived as incomplete by those who sing them. This study turns the focus on these ‘dog-ends’ of oral tradition, and looks closely at how very short texts convey meaning in performance by working the audience's knowledge of a highly allusive idiom. What emerges is the tenacity of meaning in the connotative and metaphorical language of traditional song, and the extraordinary adaptability of songs in different cultural contexts. Such pieces have a strong metonymic force: they should not be seen as residual ‘last leaves’ of a once complete tradition, but as dynamic elements in the process of oral transmission. Not all song fragments remain in their natural environment, and this book also explores relocations and dislocations as songs are adapted to new contexts: a ballad of love and death is used to count pins in lace-making, song-snippets trail subversive meanings in the novels of Charles Dickens. Because they are variable and elusive to dating, songs have had little attention from the literary establishment: the authors of this book show both how certain critical approaches can be fruitfully applied to song texts, and how concepts from studies in oral traditions prefigure aspects of contemporary critical theory. Coverage includes English, Welsh, Breton, American, and Finnish songs.
Debbie Pinfold
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199245659
- eISBN:
- 9780191697487
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199245659.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter examines some problems in using a child’s perspective and voice, especially in describing the Third Reich. Three major technical problems involved in writing a child narrative are ...
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This chapter examines some problems in using a child’s perspective and voice, especially in describing the Third Reich. Three major technical problems involved in writing a child narrative are pointed out: the potential unreliablity of the witness, narrative coherence, and achieving the register appropriate to the child. Further, since a child is still acquiring linguistic skills, writers are thus faced with the paradox of a verbally incompetent child ‘writing’ a narrative. However, the explosion of interest in the child’s perspective in post-war German literature suggests that this figure answers deeply felt needs on the part of writers dealing with the Third Reich. In this chapter, this interest in presenting the psychological reality of the child’s limited knowledge and linguistic ability and its compatibility with presenting the full complexities of the Third Reich is discussed through a variety of texts and the solutions they offer to this problem.Less
This chapter examines some problems in using a child’s perspective and voice, especially in describing the Third Reich. Three major technical problems involved in writing a child narrative are pointed out: the potential unreliablity of the witness, narrative coherence, and achieving the register appropriate to the child. Further, since a child is still acquiring linguistic skills, writers are thus faced with the paradox of a verbally incompetent child ‘writing’ a narrative. However, the explosion of interest in the child’s perspective in post-war German literature suggests that this figure answers deeply felt needs on the part of writers dealing with the Third Reich. In this chapter, this interest in presenting the psychological reality of the child’s limited knowledge and linguistic ability and its compatibility with presenting the full complexities of the Third Reich is discussed through a variety of texts and the solutions they offer to this problem.
Jordan Lavender-Smith
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617032936
- eISBN:
- 9781617032943
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617032936.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This chapter examines some formal features of Battlestar Galactica and Lost that resonate with the series’ central themes, and which metaphorize the creation and reception of TV-III serials. It ...
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This chapter examines some formal features of Battlestar Galactica and Lost that resonate with the series’ central themes, and which metaphorize the creation and reception of TV-III serials. It argues that the very same advanced technologies that allow contemporary writers the opportunity to create shows with such novelistic ambitions also undermine the narrative coherence of these elaborate, plot-heavy epics. Like Twin Peaks and The X-Files, Battlestar and Lost are ultimately failures according to their own narrative terms, failures from which tomorrow’s TV serialists have important lessons to learn.Less
This chapter examines some formal features of Battlestar Galactica and Lost that resonate with the series’ central themes, and which metaphorize the creation and reception of TV-III serials. It argues that the very same advanced technologies that allow contemporary writers the opportunity to create shows with such novelistic ambitions also undermine the narrative coherence of these elaborate, plot-heavy epics. Like Twin Peaks and The X-Files, Battlestar and Lost are ultimately failures according to their own narrative terms, failures from which tomorrow’s TV serialists have important lessons to learn.
Peter A. French
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198738534
- eISBN:
- 9780191801808
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198738534.003.0004
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Corporate Governance and Accountability
There are two different ways in which responsibility may be ascribed to an agent for the same event. One way focuses on the responsibility for some action at the time of its occurrence, and the other ...
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There are two different ways in which responsibility may be ascribed to an agent for the same event. One way focuses on the responsibility for some action at the time of its occurrence, and the other on responsibility for an action at a time subsequent to the action. The former are referred to as ascriptions of synchronic responsibility, and the latter as diachronic responsibility. This chapter examines different accounts of the right relationship between diachronic and synchronic responsibility by focusing on BP’s responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It is suggested that studies of self-narrative development in corporations could reveal stages of corporate cultural maturity according to the extent of illusion, delusion, falsehood, and fabrication in the self-narratives that shape corporate cultures and are relevant to diachronic responsibility.Less
There are two different ways in which responsibility may be ascribed to an agent for the same event. One way focuses on the responsibility for some action at the time of its occurrence, and the other on responsibility for an action at a time subsequent to the action. The former are referred to as ascriptions of synchronic responsibility, and the latter as diachronic responsibility. This chapter examines different accounts of the right relationship between diachronic and synchronic responsibility by focusing on BP’s responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It is suggested that studies of self-narrative development in corporations could reveal stages of corporate cultural maturity according to the extent of illusion, delusion, falsehood, and fabrication in the self-narratives that shape corporate cultures and are relevant to diachronic responsibility.
Wanda Rushing
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832998
- eISBN:
- 9781469605548
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807895610_rushing.6
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter shows how past disruptions and identities, self-consciousness about them, and concerns about public image give meaning and narrative coherence to Memphis as a distinctive southern place ...
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This chapter shows how past disruptions and identities, self-consciousness about them, and concerns about public image give meaning and narrative coherence to Memphis as a distinctive southern place and shape place identity. Symbols of past disruptions and conflicts, installed in public spaces to shape collective identity at particular times, represent decades of investment and conscious design to reposition Memphis as a place of regional, national, and international significance. These symbols, representing “memories” of disruptions and conflicts, are embedded in race, class, and gender relations. Consequently, they exemplify “the quintessential sociological issues of power, stratification and contestation.” Once “memories” become objects of commemoration and collective identity, they operate by a logic and force of their own.Less
This chapter shows how past disruptions and identities, self-consciousness about them, and concerns about public image give meaning and narrative coherence to Memphis as a distinctive southern place and shape place identity. Symbols of past disruptions and conflicts, installed in public spaces to shape collective identity at particular times, represent decades of investment and conscious design to reposition Memphis as a place of regional, national, and international significance. These symbols, representing “memories” of disruptions and conflicts, are embedded in race, class, and gender relations. Consequently, they exemplify “the quintessential sociological issues of power, stratification and contestation.” Once “memories” become objects of commemoration and collective identity, they operate by a logic and force of their own.
