Cheryl Mattingly and Linda C. Garro
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520218246
- eISBN:
- 9780520935228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520218246.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This introductory chapter discusses narrative as a theoretical construct and within the context of anthropology and medicine. It then examines the succeeding chapters and situates them within broader ...
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This introductory chapter discusses narrative as a theoretical construct and within the context of anthropology and medicine. It then examines the succeeding chapters and situates them within broader trends. These trends are not limited to medical anthropology or to cultural anthropology, but extend into various disciplines. It examines the centrality of narrative to some forms of therapeutic practice and discusses the definition of the term “story” and the different uses of the narrative form. The chapter also studies some important terms related to the narrative construct and views the narrative as a form of communication, representation, and construction of self.Less
This introductory chapter discusses narrative as a theoretical construct and within the context of anthropology and medicine. It then examines the succeeding chapters and situates them within broader trends. These trends are not limited to medical anthropology or to cultural anthropology, but extend into various disciplines. It examines the centrality of narrative to some forms of therapeutic practice and discusses the definition of the term “story” and the different uses of the narrative form. The chapter also studies some important terms related to the narrative construct and views the narrative as a form of communication, representation, and construction of self.
Julie Stone Peters
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199262168
- eISBN:
- 9780191698811
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262168.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This chapter examines the Renaissance insistence on the shaping of narrative form to conditions of presentation—the insistence on drama as a performance genre distinct from other literary genres, one ...
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This chapter examines the Renaissance insistence on the shaping of narrative form to conditions of presentation—the insistence on drama as a performance genre distinct from other literary genres, one reliant on the unities of time and space to defend its illusionism from the spectator's intrusive senses.Less
This chapter examines the Renaissance insistence on the shaping of narrative form to conditions of presentation—the insistence on drama as a performance genre distinct from other literary genres, one reliant on the unities of time and space to defend its illusionism from the spectator's intrusive senses.
Degnen Cathrine
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780719083082
- eISBN:
- 9781781706244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719083082.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Chapter Six extends these reflections on selfhood to narrativity, a crucial element of the construction of self. This chapter examines how narrativity was used, interpreted and experienced in the ...
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Chapter Six extends these reflections on selfhood to narrativity, a crucial element of the construction of self. This chapter examines how narrativity was used, interpreted and experienced in the daily lives of the older people with whom this research was conducted. This chapter furthers the analysis of Chapter Four by demonstrating the distinctiveness of narrative styles at times employed by older people in comparison with younger adults. How such narrative activity and style are interpreted and responded to by their interlocutors forms a critical aspect of how oldness comes to be constructed and projected onto the older narrator, endangering the very work of building the self that narration seeks to accomplish.Less
Chapter Six extends these reflections on selfhood to narrativity, a crucial element of the construction of self. This chapter examines how narrativity was used, interpreted and experienced in the daily lives of the older people with whom this research was conducted. This chapter furthers the analysis of Chapter Four by demonstrating the distinctiveness of narrative styles at times employed by older people in comparison with younger adults. How such narrative activity and style are interpreted and responded to by their interlocutors forms a critical aspect of how oldness comes to be constructed and projected onto the older narrator, endangering the very work of building the self that narration seeks to accomplish.
Ayelet Ben-Yishai
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199937646
- eISBN:
- 9780199333110
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199937646.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter joins recent nineteenth-century legal history scholarship in reconsidering the history, function, and theory of the common law through a long-overdue inquiry into the nature of legal ...
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This chapter joins recent nineteenth-century legal history scholarship in reconsidering the history, function, and theory of the common law through a long-overdue inquiry into the nature of legal precedent and its narrative forms, the law reports. It shows that these awkward, often unreadable, case law narratives are in fact a product of a long discursive tradition, that their insular and skeletal forms enable the process of precedential reasoning and arguing. Read in their historical, legal, and narrative contexts, the anti-narrative form of the reports reveals how they negotiate the larger socio-political challenges to the legal culture in which they function. Negotiating between the new orthodoxy of positive law and the still powerful common law, precedent reveals the intricacies of nineteenth-century legal pluralism. By negotiating the tension between a concrete case and the abstract rule which is its potential precedent, anti-narrativity enables the communal (if contradictory) nature and goal of precedential reasoning: the creation of a stable common law, dating from “time immemorial.” Anti-narrativity thus constitutes and reveals the (troubled) narrative form of the (troubled) legal doctrine of stare decisis in the Victorian period; it also reconsiders the role of narrative in law.Less
This chapter joins recent nineteenth-century legal history scholarship in reconsidering the history, function, and theory of the common law through a long-overdue inquiry into the nature of legal precedent and its narrative forms, the law reports. It shows that these awkward, often unreadable, case law narratives are in fact a product of a long discursive tradition, that their insular and skeletal forms enable the process of precedential reasoning and arguing. Read in their historical, legal, and narrative contexts, the anti-narrative form of the reports reveals how they negotiate the larger socio-political challenges to the legal culture in which they function. Negotiating between the new orthodoxy of positive law and the still powerful common law, precedent reveals the intricacies of nineteenth-century legal pluralism. By negotiating the tension between a concrete case and the abstract rule which is its potential precedent, anti-narrativity enables the communal (if contradictory) nature and goal of precedential reasoning: the creation of a stable common law, dating from “time immemorial.” Anti-narrativity thus constitutes and reveals the (troubled) narrative form of the (troubled) legal doctrine of stare decisis in the Victorian period; it also reconsiders the role of narrative in law.
Robert A. Neimeyer and Finn Tschudi
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195140057
- eISBN:
- 9780199847402
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195140057.003.0009
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
As demonstrated by how one of the authors of this chapter has been able to organize his thoughts, human beings attempt to sort out their experiences through making use of the architecture of the ...
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As demonstrated by how one of the authors of this chapter has been able to organize his thoughts, human beings attempt to sort out their experiences through making use of the architecture of the narrative form. Because perhaps of his familiarity toward and expertise on various aspects of narrative psychology, and how this is set in a cognitive perspective, the author had difficulty in writing the essay, since his interest was no longer excited as such a subject matter had already lost its novelty on him. The two authors ended up with conversations regarding their interests and their beliefs on the subjects of constructivism, peace psychology, and human emotion. The narrative of how this chapter was written demonstrates how the authors have come to realize that narrative concepts are essential in dealing with interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts. Thus, this chapter aims to develop a cross-fertilization between the two through discussing narrative principles in individual distress and using these in dealing with conflicts.Less
As demonstrated by how one of the authors of this chapter has been able to organize his thoughts, human beings attempt to sort out their experiences through making use of the architecture of the narrative form. Because perhaps of his familiarity toward and expertise on various aspects of narrative psychology, and how this is set in a cognitive perspective, the author had difficulty in writing the essay, since his interest was no longer excited as such a subject matter had already lost its novelty on him. The two authors ended up with conversations regarding their interests and their beliefs on the subjects of constructivism, peace psychology, and human emotion. The narrative of how this chapter was written demonstrates how the authors have come to realize that narrative concepts are essential in dealing with interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts. Thus, this chapter aims to develop a cross-fertilization between the two through discussing narrative principles in individual distress and using these in dealing with conflicts.
Cheryl Mattingly and Linda C. Garro
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520218246
- eISBN:
- 9780520935228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520218246.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter reviews published autobiographical accounts that were written by physicians. It studies what these accounts can be revealed when viewed from the reader's perspective. It then ...
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This chapter reviews published autobiographical accounts that were written by physicians. It studies what these accounts can be revealed when viewed from the reader's perspective. It then investigates the connection between the narrative form and the messages that these accounts convey not only about the personal lives of their narrators, but also about the social world of medicine. The chapter focuses and analyzes two genres of physician tales for analysis, namely the “female physician” story and the “training tale”.Less
This chapter reviews published autobiographical accounts that were written by physicians. It studies what these accounts can be revealed when viewed from the reader's perspective. It then investigates the connection between the narrative form and the messages that these accounts convey not only about the personal lives of their narrators, but also about the social world of medicine. The chapter focuses and analyzes two genres of physician tales for analysis, namely the “female physician” story and the “training tale”.
Carol Jacobs
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231171823
- eISBN:
- 9780231540100
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231171823.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
W. G. Sebald’s writing has been widely recognized for its intense, nuanced engagement with the Holocaust, the Allied bombing of Germany in WWII, and other episodes of violence throughout history. ...
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W. G. Sebald’s writing has been widely recognized for its intense, nuanced engagement with the Holocaust, the Allied bombing of Germany in WWII, and other episodes of violence throughout history. Through his inventive use of narrative form and juxtaposition of image and text, Sebald’s work has offered readers new ways to think about remembering and representing trauma. In Sebald’s Vision, Carol Jacobs examines the author's prose, novels, and poems, illuminating the ethical and aesthetic questions that shaped his remarkable oeuvre. Through the trope of “vision”, Jacobs explores aspects of Sebald’s writing and the way the author’s indirect depiction of events highlights the ethical imperative of representing history while at the same time calling into question the possibility of such representation. Jacobs’s lucid readings of Sebald’s work also consider his famous juxtaposition of images and use of citations to explain his interest in the vagaries of perception. Isolating different ideas of vision in some of his most noted works, including Rings of Saturn, Austerlitz, and After Nature, as well as in Sebald’s interviews, poetry, art criticism, and his lecture Air War and Literature, Jacobs introduces new perspectives for understanding the distinctiveness of Sebald’s work and its profound moral implications.Less
W. G. Sebald’s writing has been widely recognized for its intense, nuanced engagement with the Holocaust, the Allied bombing of Germany in WWII, and other episodes of violence throughout history. Through his inventive use of narrative form and juxtaposition of image and text, Sebald’s work has offered readers new ways to think about remembering and representing trauma. In Sebald’s Vision, Carol Jacobs examines the author's prose, novels, and poems, illuminating the ethical and aesthetic questions that shaped his remarkable oeuvre. Through the trope of “vision”, Jacobs explores aspects of Sebald’s writing and the way the author’s indirect depiction of events highlights the ethical imperative of representing history while at the same time calling into question the possibility of such representation. Jacobs’s lucid readings of Sebald’s work also consider his famous juxtaposition of images and use of citations to explain his interest in the vagaries of perception. Isolating different ideas of vision in some of his most noted works, including Rings of Saturn, Austerlitz, and After Nature, as well as in Sebald’s interviews, poetry, art criticism, and his lecture Air War and Literature, Jacobs introduces new perspectives for understanding the distinctiveness of Sebald’s work and its profound moral implications.
Herbert S. Terrace and Janet Metcalfe (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195161564
- eISBN:
- 9780199848386
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161564.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
How do we develop self-awareness, or a sense of self? One of the most popular theories is that language plays a major role: language and the narrative form allow us to develop a sense of self because ...
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How do we develop self-awareness, or a sense of self? One of the most popular theories is that language plays a major role: language and the narrative form allow us to develop a sense of self because this sense is dependent upon representational thought and the psychological manipulation of representations. Some argue against this theory, claiming that more than language and representational thought is needed. Comparing human and animal cognition is a particularly powerful way of examining this disagreement; if animals possess self-awareness without having the representational linguistic capabilities of humans, then the comparison will provide significant evidence for the argument that language and narrative form do not play the only role, and that researchers may have overlooked a cognitive link. This book brings together the work of a group of researchers, who show that self-awareness, metacognitions, and representational thought are unique to humans, and others who believe that precursors to self-reflective consciousness exist in non-human primates.Less
How do we develop self-awareness, or a sense of self? One of the most popular theories is that language plays a major role: language and the narrative form allow us to develop a sense of self because this sense is dependent upon representational thought and the psychological manipulation of representations. Some argue against this theory, claiming that more than language and representational thought is needed. Comparing human and animal cognition is a particularly powerful way of examining this disagreement; if animals possess self-awareness without having the representational linguistic capabilities of humans, then the comparison will provide significant evidence for the argument that language and narrative form do not play the only role, and that researchers may have overlooked a cognitive link. This book brings together the work of a group of researchers, who show that self-awareness, metacognitions, and representational thought are unique to humans, and others who believe that precursors to self-reflective consciousness exist in non-human primates.
András Bálint Kovács
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231165310
- eISBN:
- 9780231850377
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231165310.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines four aspects of Tarr's narration that are more or less constant in his oeuvre: banality of narrative events; slowness of narration and suspense; static situations and circular ...
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This chapter examines four aspects of Tarr's narration that are more or less constant in his oeuvre: banality of narrative events; slowness of narration and suspense; static situations and circular narrative form. Manifestations of these four aspects in individual films are also discussed. The basic building block of Tarr films is the banality, or the unexceptional, everyday character, of the events. At his best Tarr can render even the most excessive or exceptional event an everyday banality that has no effect on the characters' way of life. Slowness of narration is a cornerstone of the Tarr style and one of the main ingredients of the circular structure—a structure producing the feeling that the return is inevitable. Circularity of dramatic form characterizes stories in which characters go through a series of events but these events do not get them closer to the solution to their initial problem. Not only does this remain unresolved, but at the end they lose the perspective to resolve it that they may have had at the beginning. At the end of the film they find themselves in a situation that is the same as or worse than before.Less
This chapter examines four aspects of Tarr's narration that are more or less constant in his oeuvre: banality of narrative events; slowness of narration and suspense; static situations and circular narrative form. Manifestations of these four aspects in individual films are also discussed. The basic building block of Tarr films is the banality, or the unexceptional, everyday character, of the events. At his best Tarr can render even the most excessive or exceptional event an everyday banality that has no effect on the characters' way of life. Slowness of narration is a cornerstone of the Tarr style and one of the main ingredients of the circular structure—a structure producing the feeling that the return is inevitable. Circularity of dramatic form characterizes stories in which characters go through a series of events but these events do not get them closer to the solution to their initial problem. Not only does this remain unresolved, but at the end they lose the perspective to resolve it that they may have had at the beginning. At the end of the film they find themselves in a situation that is the same as or worse than before.
Fiona Somerset
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801452819
- eISBN:
- 9780801470998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801452819.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter investigates a very common and widespread characteristic of lollard writings: their use of narrative forms, especially but not only drawn from the bible, to give their readers models for ...
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This chapter investigates a very common and widespread characteristic of lollard writings: their use of narrative forms, especially but not only drawn from the bible, to give their readers models for holy living. In these narratives they provide their readers with a training in feeling—that is, lollard writers use stories to show their readers how to feel like saints. Yet lollards are usually thought to disapprove of stories—and they do, at least some of the time, avoid narrative. Popular sermons containing entertaining stories were especially associated with the friars; however, lollards criticize this kind of preaching, and what is more, they do not practice it.Less
This chapter investigates a very common and widespread characteristic of lollard writings: their use of narrative forms, especially but not only drawn from the bible, to give their readers models for holy living. In these narratives they provide their readers with a training in feeling—that is, lollard writers use stories to show their readers how to feel like saints. Yet lollards are usually thought to disapprove of stories—and they do, at least some of the time, avoid narrative. Popular sermons containing entertaining stories were especially associated with the friars; however, lollards criticize this kind of preaching, and what is more, they do not practice it.
Abraham Acosta
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823257096
- eISBN:
- 9780823261475
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823257096.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter proposes a critical genealogy of the testimonio form as crystallized through the controversy surrounding I, Rigoberta Menchú. Testimonio emerged in the 1960s as an alternative narrative ...
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This chapter proposes a critical genealogy of the testimonio form as crystallized through the controversy surrounding I, Rigoberta Menchú. Testimonio emerged in the 1960s as an alternative narrative form that proposed a new mode of social articulation in Latin America for marginalized and oppressed communities in the wake of the success of the Cuban Revolution. Defined explicitly in opposition to the novel, the testimonio form facilitated the direct expression of insurgent and subordinated voices and was heralded as the genre prefiguring a revolutionary age in the Americas. However, current scholarship fails to account for the fact that there are actually two competing theories of testimonio. The chapter critically juxtaposes these competing theories of testimonio and reads them against one other. In light of this analysis, it turns to a critical rereading of I, Rigoberta Menchú that highlights the testimonio genre’s confused and often contradictory formalization as a vehicle for narrating subaltern revolutionary history.Less
This chapter proposes a critical genealogy of the testimonio form as crystallized through the controversy surrounding I, Rigoberta Menchú. Testimonio emerged in the 1960s as an alternative narrative form that proposed a new mode of social articulation in Latin America for marginalized and oppressed communities in the wake of the success of the Cuban Revolution. Defined explicitly in opposition to the novel, the testimonio form facilitated the direct expression of insurgent and subordinated voices and was heralded as the genre prefiguring a revolutionary age in the Americas. However, current scholarship fails to account for the fact that there are actually two competing theories of testimonio. The chapter critically juxtaposes these competing theories of testimonio and reads them against one other. In light of this analysis, it turns to a critical rereading of I, Rigoberta Menchú that highlights the testimonio genre’s confused and often contradictory formalization as a vehicle for narrating subaltern revolutionary history.
Gerd Bayer
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781784991234
- eISBN:
- 9781526115249
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784991234.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Turning from paratextual poetics to actual prose fictions, this chapter discusses how English Restoration writers experimented with narrative form. It shows that various elements of what, in the ...
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Turning from paratextual poetics to actual prose fictions, this chapter discusses how English Restoration writers experimented with narrative form. It shows that various elements of what, in the eighteenth century, will come to define the novel as a new genre were already in use in the late seventeenth century. Taking issues with the supposedly ahistorical nature of narrative theory and its terminology, the chapters shows that many narratological concepts are built on a (high)modernist version of the novel, which, for instance, clearly differentiates between authors and narrators, a distinction only vaguely drawn in the early modern age, when many works were still performed aloud rather than silently read.Less
Turning from paratextual poetics to actual prose fictions, this chapter discusses how English Restoration writers experimented with narrative form. It shows that various elements of what, in the eighteenth century, will come to define the novel as a new genre were already in use in the late seventeenth century. Taking issues with the supposedly ahistorical nature of narrative theory and its terminology, the chapters shows that many narratological concepts are built on a (high)modernist version of the novel, which, for instance, clearly differentiates between authors and narrators, a distinction only vaguely drawn in the early modern age, when many works were still performed aloud rather than silently read.
Todd Decker
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520282322
- eISBN:
- 9780520966543
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520282322.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter describes the large-scale narrative and musical patterns of serious Hollywood combat films made after Vietnam. Two larger narrative shapes are identified: two-part forms (such as ...
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This chapter describes the large-scale narrative and musical patterns of serious Hollywood combat films made after Vietnam. Two larger narrative shapes are identified: two-part forms (such as training camp followed by battlefield) and alternating action-reflection forms. Then, the overall shape and content of combat film musical scores are described in a comparative context. Four strategies for the use of music in war films are described: films with very little music of any sort, films which alternate between scored and unscored scenes (Saving Private Ryan), music-laden films with music noticeably present much of the time (Born on the Fourth of July), and films with almost continuous music. The frequently blurry distinctions between sound effects and music, the role of popular music (Full Metal Jacket), the importance of diegetic silence, the ambiguous authorship of some film scores (Apocalypse Now, The Hurt Locker), and the shifting nature of the soundtrack mix are also considered.Less
This chapter describes the large-scale narrative and musical patterns of serious Hollywood combat films made after Vietnam. Two larger narrative shapes are identified: two-part forms (such as training camp followed by battlefield) and alternating action-reflection forms. Then, the overall shape and content of combat film musical scores are described in a comparative context. Four strategies for the use of music in war films are described: films with very little music of any sort, films which alternate between scored and unscored scenes (Saving Private Ryan), music-laden films with music noticeably present much of the time (Born on the Fourth of July), and films with almost continuous music. The frequently blurry distinctions between sound effects and music, the role of popular music (Full Metal Jacket), the importance of diegetic silence, the ambiguous authorship of some film scores (Apocalypse Now, The Hurt Locker), and the shifting nature of the soundtrack mix are also considered.
Chris Andrews
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231168069
- eISBN:
- 9780231537537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231168069.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter explores how Bolaño’s characters experience their selves in time. Typically, the more sympathetic characters are little inclined to fashion selves through storytelling or to live their ...
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This chapter explores how Bolaño’s characters experience their selves in time. Typically, the more sympathetic characters are little inclined to fashion selves through storytelling or to live their lives in a narrative mode; they tend to be aimless. There are three reasons for this. One is psychological: in Bolaño’s fiction, the Episodic life, lived with no sense that one’s present self was there in the further past or will be there in the further future, is not intrinsically inferior to the Diachronic life, in which the self is felt to have long-term continuity. There is also a historical reason: many of the stories that Bolaño tells are of Latin American lives uprooted and disoriented by political turmoil. And, finally, he has a marked aesthetic preference for discontinuous, inconclusive, drifting narrative forms.Less
This chapter explores how Bolaño’s characters experience their selves in time. Typically, the more sympathetic characters are little inclined to fashion selves through storytelling or to live their lives in a narrative mode; they tend to be aimless. There are three reasons for this. One is psychological: in Bolaño’s fiction, the Episodic life, lived with no sense that one’s present self was there in the further past or will be there in the further future, is not intrinsically inferior to the Diachronic life, in which the self is felt to have long-term continuity. There is also a historical reason: many of the stories that Bolaño tells are of Latin American lives uprooted and disoriented by political turmoil. And, finally, he has a marked aesthetic preference for discontinuous, inconclusive, drifting narrative forms.
Kathryn Lachman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781781380307
- eISBN:
- 9781781387290
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781380307.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The Introduction establishes the principle concerns of the book: to map out a more responsible, rigorous, and situated engagement with the music in transnational fiction and theory; to demonstrate ...
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The Introduction establishes the principle concerns of the book: to map out a more responsible, rigorous, and situated engagement with the music in transnational fiction and theory; to demonstrate the connections between the literary, the musical and the political; and to assess the wide-ranging applications of musical forms in transnational writing. It opens with a critical reading of Julio Cortázar's story “Clone” to illustrate the influence of musical form on contemporary transnational fiction. It then provides a brief overview of the significance of musical concepts in twentieth-century literary criticism, and outlines the problematic status of the voice in both music and literature. The Introduction proceeds to evaluate recent developments in the field of word-music studies, noting that scholars have only recently attended to the music of postcolonial and non-Anglophone literatures and have largely neglected the political and ethical implications of musical form. Finally, it assesses the fundamental role that music plays in the work of novelists Assia Djebar, Maryse Condé, J. M. Coetzee, and Nancy Huston, calling attention to the specific contexts from which each of these authors writes—postcolonial Algeria, Guadeloupe, South Africa, Canada, Paris, New York, Australia. Working between multiple traditions, languages, and audiences, these writers appropriate musical forms in their efforts to reinvigorate and reinvent the novel.Less
The Introduction establishes the principle concerns of the book: to map out a more responsible, rigorous, and situated engagement with the music in transnational fiction and theory; to demonstrate the connections between the literary, the musical and the political; and to assess the wide-ranging applications of musical forms in transnational writing. It opens with a critical reading of Julio Cortázar's story “Clone” to illustrate the influence of musical form on contemporary transnational fiction. It then provides a brief overview of the significance of musical concepts in twentieth-century literary criticism, and outlines the problematic status of the voice in both music and literature. The Introduction proceeds to evaluate recent developments in the field of word-music studies, noting that scholars have only recently attended to the music of postcolonial and non-Anglophone literatures and have largely neglected the political and ethical implications of musical form. Finally, it assesses the fundamental role that music plays in the work of novelists Assia Djebar, Maryse Condé, J. M. Coetzee, and Nancy Huston, calling attention to the specific contexts from which each of these authors writes—postcolonial Algeria, Guadeloupe, South Africa, Canada, Paris, New York, Australia. Working between multiple traditions, languages, and audiences, these writers appropriate musical forms in their efforts to reinvigorate and reinvent the novel.
Andrew Bennett
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074875
- eISBN:
- 9781781702420
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074875.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter considers the problem of literary ignorance using the perspective of the nature of narrative form. It studies the narrative form of Joseph Conrad's short stories, and suggests that a ...
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This chapter considers the problem of literary ignorance using the perspective of the nature of narrative form. It studies the narrative form of Joseph Conrad's short stories, and suggests that a literary agnoiology would be partly able to account for the problem of Conrad's fiction and its relation to his life. The chapter notes that the inability to see – which is, in this sense, nescience – is natural not only to the thematics of Conrad's ‘short’ fiction and to his life, but also to the process of composition, the nature of short-story writing and to Conrad's poetics of the short and long story.Less
This chapter considers the problem of literary ignorance using the perspective of the nature of narrative form. It studies the narrative form of Joseph Conrad's short stories, and suggests that a literary agnoiology would be partly able to account for the problem of Conrad's fiction and its relation to his life. The chapter notes that the inability to see – which is, in this sense, nescience – is natural not only to the thematics of Conrad's ‘short’ fiction and to his life, but also to the process of composition, the nature of short-story writing and to Conrad's poetics of the short and long story.
Matthew Dischinger and Jay Watson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496806345
- eISBN:
- 9781496806383
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496806345.003.0015
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter discusses the appearances and uses of plantation ledgers in William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses(1942) and Edward P. Jones’s The Known World(2003). It examines the ways both novels use the ...
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This chapter discusses the appearances and uses of plantation ledgers in William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses(1942) and Edward P. Jones’s The Known World(2003). It examines the ways both novels use the narrative forms to contain, control, and undermine the account of the plantation found in ledgers while also contending that Jones’s encyclopedic novel performs a more thorough critique of its ledger narratives than does Faulkner’s novel. The Known World features many types of so-called objective forms of accounting—judicial reports, pamphlets, census reports, and, of course, ledgers—to form an archival pastiche about the construction of these documents which lack the authority of the surrounding narrative. While Go Down, Moses partially decenters the McCaslin plantation ledgers, it cannot entirely move past the account contained therein. This comparison between historical documents in the two novels sheds light on critical conceptions of southern and post-southern literature.Less
This chapter discusses the appearances and uses of plantation ledgers in William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses(1942) and Edward P. Jones’s The Known World(2003). It examines the ways both novels use the narrative forms to contain, control, and undermine the account of the plantation found in ledgers while also contending that Jones’s encyclopedic novel performs a more thorough critique of its ledger narratives than does Faulkner’s novel. The Known World features many types of so-called objective forms of accounting—judicial reports, pamphlets, census reports, and, of course, ledgers—to form an archival pastiche about the construction of these documents which lack the authority of the surrounding narrative. While Go Down, Moses partially decenters the McCaslin plantation ledgers, it cannot entirely move past the account contained therein. This comparison between historical documents in the two novels sheds light on critical conceptions of southern and post-southern literature.
Ben Owen
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496802217
- eISBN:
- 9781496802262
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496802217.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
Reading Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza as an entry in the tradition of book-length comics, a tradition about which comics artists, including Sacco, often express some ambivalence, Ben Owen argues that ...
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Reading Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza as an entry in the tradition of book-length comics, a tradition about which comics artists, including Sacco, often express some ambivalence, Ben Owen argues that Sacco’s representation of the 1956 Rafah Massacre produces an alternative sense of historical time in both its content and its form.Less
Reading Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza as an entry in the tradition of book-length comics, a tradition about which comics artists, including Sacco, often express some ambivalence, Ben Owen argues that Sacco’s representation of the 1956 Rafah Massacre produces an alternative sense of historical time in both its content and its form.
Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823277872
- eISBN:
- 9780823280490
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823277872.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This essay shows how the idea of the South Atlantic as a space
of dictatorships and banana republics was contested on the ground by literary experimentation and transoceanic influence. Armillas- ...
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This essay shows how the idea of the South Atlantic as a space
of dictatorships and banana republics was contested on the ground by literary experimentation and transoceanic influence. Armillas- Tiseyra uses Sony Labou Tansi’s La vie et demie (Life and a Half 1979) as an example of a dictator novel, a genre that spans the Global South. Armillas-Tiseyra argues for the term “constellation” to be used in place of “magical realism” to classify the genre. “Constellation” here serves as a figure both for the relationship of
individual texts or textual features to each other (a loose configuration or grouping) and for a mode of comparison that proceeds by juxtaposition and collage rather than more rigid hierarchical systematization. The allows Armillas-Tiseyra to approach and grapple with the difficult relationship between critique and narrative form.Less
This essay shows how the idea of the South Atlantic as a space
of dictatorships and banana republics was contested on the ground by literary experimentation and transoceanic influence. Armillas- Tiseyra uses Sony Labou Tansi’s La vie et demie (Life and a Half 1979) as an example of a dictator novel, a genre that spans the Global South. Armillas-Tiseyra argues for the term “constellation” to be used in place of “magical realism” to classify the genre. “Constellation” here serves as a figure both for the relationship of
individual texts or textual features to each other (a loose configuration or grouping) and for a mode of comparison that proceeds by juxtaposition and collage rather than more rigid hierarchical systematization. The allows Armillas-Tiseyra to approach and grapple with the difficult relationship between critique and narrative form.
Susan McHugh
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816670321
- eISBN:
- 9781452947297
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816670321.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Beginning with a historical account of why animal stories pose endemic critical challenges to literary and cultural theory, this book argues that key creative developments in narrative form became ...
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Beginning with a historical account of why animal stories pose endemic critical challenges to literary and cultural theory, this book argues that key creative developments in narrative form became inseparable from shifts in animal politics and science in the past century. The book traces representational patterns specific to modern and contemporary fictions of cross-species companionship through a variety of media—including novels, films, fine art, television shows, and digital games—to show how nothing less than the futures of all species life is at stake in narrative forms. The book’s investigations into fictions of people relying on animals in civic and professional life—most obviously those of service animal users and female professional horse riders—showcase distinctly modern and human–animal forms of intersubjectivity. But increasingly graphic violence directed at these figures indicates their ambivalent significance to changing configurations of species.Less
Beginning with a historical account of why animal stories pose endemic critical challenges to literary and cultural theory, this book argues that key creative developments in narrative form became inseparable from shifts in animal politics and science in the past century. The book traces representational patterns specific to modern and contemporary fictions of cross-species companionship through a variety of media—including novels, films, fine art, television shows, and digital games—to show how nothing less than the futures of all species life is at stake in narrative forms. The book’s investigations into fictions of people relying on animals in civic and professional life—most obviously those of service animal users and female professional horse riders—showcase distinctly modern and human–animal forms of intersubjectivity. But increasingly graphic violence directed at these figures indicates their ambivalent significance to changing configurations of species.
