Time and History in the Memories of Soviet Generations

Personal narratives can be seen as iterative theories-of-valued-selves: thick, deliberate outlines traced over and selectively enhancing and obscuring the finer details of life as lived. Through telling such stories we represent and orient ourselves towards certain potential actions while turning away from others. Biographical narration is in this way a mobilisation of our pasts to identify valued futures. This article draws together narrative theory, identity psychology and educational philosophy to submit a tentative theory of educational narratives as iterative theories of personal value. The author’s autoethnographic account of completing a postgraduate course online throughout the COVID pandemic is then used as the basis for an inductive analysis of narrative features and their felt and represented significance. This process highlights the ways in which the author’s personal narrative can be read as a theory-of-valued-self, identifying key moments of interaction which characterise the narrator’s valued identity and open causal pathways to future valued action. Such practices may have potential in application with so-called ‘lifelong learners’, adults who continually engage with education throughout life particularly in response to major professional and personal disruption which can otherwise result in a lack of continuity and identity coherence.

Using traditional analytic techniques as well as methods drawn from narrative theory and cognitive linguistics, this paper explores the relationships between the song “The Hanging Tree” (performed by Marty Robbins), its original use in the 1959 Western of the same name (scored by Max Steiner), and the novella on which the movie is based (by Dorothy Johnson). Lakoff and Johnson’s “Location Event-Structure Metaphor” allows Zbikowski’s conceptual metaphor PITCH RELATIONSHIPS ARE RELATIONSHIPS IN VERTICAL SPACE to engage concepts of time, events, and narrative. This context reveals a contradiction in the cross-domain mapping between music and text in the song. The seventh scale degree is “left hanging” in the body of the song, pointing to the imminent event of hanging. Yet after the hanging is averted, the leading tone is prominently regained in the same register and resolved. Two possibilities are considered: 1) Conventional tonal metaphors rather than locally-defined metaphors have priority at various moments in a particular genre. 2) The metaphor is musically transformed through “frame-shifting” to create a new conceptual blend. Finally, the re-arrangement of the song in the movie causes this shift to occur differently, raising issues concerning the role of the singer as cinematic narrator.

This study is to compare the Characteristic of the Narrative in Korean and Thai popular television Serial. This qualitative research is to study differences and similarities between popular Korean and Thai television Serial by analyzing the narratives in the Korean television Serial, ‘Jewel in the Palace’, and the Thai television Serial, ‘Four Reigns’. It comprises of in-depth interviews with 7 people; the scriptwriters, producers, and academics under the frame of Narrative theory. The study found that the two dramas had different characteristics of narrative due to different basis and purposes of creation. ‘Jewel in the Palace’ was created in order to promote Korean culture while ‘Four Reigns’ was created from the literary form for purpose of recalling history. 'Four Reigns' had scenes of adapted script, innovation and different script. The distinctive characteristics of Jewel in the Palace: The creation of the story and the formation of its components: The characteristic of the narrative are all tied up perfectly. The overall plot and its narrative is told in accordance with the theory which adds a universal quality to it. The scenes are elaborate and beautiful, it is quite important to have interesting details in the scenes. Both design of scene and clothes match smoothly in color shades. Moreover, it reflects the current society. While, The distinctive characteristics of ‘Four Reign’: The presentation of Realism. Plot, conflicts, narration, characters, their viewpoints and production design are formed so naturally and realistically which can reflect the society in past time. Moreover, the purpose of production should to be clear purposes and goals. The story should relate with purpose and target group of audiences.

By focusing on Gianni Amelio’s film I ragazzi di via Panisperna, this paper aims to show the exemplary character of the disappearance of Ettore Majorana starting from the interpretations by Leonardo Sciascia and Giorgio Agamben. Starting from the idea of “simplicity” as an aesthetical answer to the question raised by Majorana’s story, the analysis will attempt to highlight the main filmic strategies employed to represent the life of the young scientist and its consequences for a theory of biographical narrative.

This paper aims to investigate how Anne Gilchrist, an important historical figure who played an extremely relevant role in the dissemination of Walt Whitman’s poetic work Leaves of Grass, “abandons” the real world and is made a character in the “world of text”, from the moment she becomes the object of biographical writing in Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman (1900), authored by Elizabeth Porter Gould, establishing some intertextual relations with Walt Whitman’s Mrs. G.: A Biography of Anne Gilchrist (1991), by Marion Walker Alcaro. For that purpose, a review of the discussions surrounding women’s authorship writing in a context in which women are both subjects and objects of the representation of biographical narrative is conducted.

Paul Ricoeur´s narrative theory of time proposes that we, during our reading, move backwards and forward in narrative time and that “temporality springs forth in the plural unity of future, past and present” (167) . In utilizing his theory of time and the idea of cyclical time as a prominent characteristic in twentieth century literature, I attempt to apply his intriguing theory to an exemplary novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez. The essay demonstrates how the circularity of the imaginary travel and the linearity of the quest as such are thus put together. Indeed, time is circular and recurrent rather than rectilinear and progressive in this novel wherein readers are moved between present, past and future time.

Narratology can profit from more historicized attention to premodern texts. This essay opens an extended narratological analysis of the fifteenth-century Middle English Book of Margery Kempe. Modifying narrative theory (Genette, Bal) to suit a medieval narratology, I use discourse analysis to explore the language, focalization, and temporality of the narrating discourse. The text, seemingly without a narrator, deploys multiple focalizations to construct an intricate third-person narrative rather than a strict autobiography of the life of a lay, extravagantly pious, and visionary woman. Some focalizations are internal (Experiencers), while others are external (Summarizer, Commentator, Scribal-Textualist). The lively narration weaves together homodiegetic and heterodiegetic perspectives. The narration constructs multifocalized accounts of the protagonist’s everyday struggles and interactions and her interior experiences and visions of Jesus suffering in the Passion and “fresch” on the streets. Narratological analysis uncovers the textual power of narrating the protagonist’s life story with transplacing temporalities of Apostolic past, near past, and present reading time.

Abstract:This chapter investigates representations of London from the late twentieth century to the other side of the millennial threshold; the complex layers of the urban palimpsest are explored in relation to Peter Ackroyd's Hawhmoor, Martin Amis's London Fields, Emma Tennant's Two Women of London, Alan Moore's graphic novel From Hell Michael Winterbottom's film Wonderland. Despite the nihilistic stance that many texts appear to propose, this analysis demonstrates that traces of redemption are also visible in many of these postmodernist representations of London. The metamorphic city thus becomes paradoxical dimension where metropolitan lives, though apparently entrenched in the claustrophobic space of their urban experience, may give in to the magical openness of chance. Moreover, beyond the spectral gaps, glimpse of the 'real' may appear unexpectedly.Key names concepts: London - city - metropolis - postmodernism - psychogeography.Photographs of disappeared humans, victims of the latest outrage, multiply across plywood fences that protect the latest grand project. Life drains from the image like hope from dying eye. Memory-prints of the lost are arranged, in the hope that such ritual will restore the missing person, the loved one: daughter, brother, husband, father. [...] In our present climate of shoulder-shrugging amnesia, we have memorials to memorials, information posters telling us where the original slab has been stored. Heritage replaces the memories which should be passed on, anecdotally, affectionately, from generation to generation, by word of mouth.(Sinclair, London: City of Disappearances 2006: 2)It's so cool when the heat onAnd when it's cool it's so wickedWe just keep melting into oneJust like the tribes before us did,I love this concrete jungle stillWith all its sirens its speedThe people here united willCreate kind of London breed.(Zephaniah, 'The London Breed' 2001)To any writer the metropolitan space simultaneously gift curse. On one hand, the city is text that can be read, as Dana Arnold reminds us, and open to multiple varied interpretations which can explore the resonance between different discourses relevant to social cultural theory (2000: xix). On the other, resisting monolithic interpretations, the city's multilayered palimpsest an organic entity, but also a labyrinth, as Peter Ackroyd puts it, of stone half of flesh (2001: 2). Disorienting as the city space may be, the maze-like structure of the metropolis conceals, Elizabeth Wilson notes, its paradoxical semantic essence:This recurring image, of the city as maze, as having secret centre, contradicts that other equally common metaphor for the city as labyrinthine centreless. [...] Yet one never retraces the same pathway twice, for the city in constant process of change, thus becomes dreamlike magical, yet also terrifying in the way dream can be. (1992: 3)Incorporating the architectural layers of past present times, the metropolitan space ambivalent in its defiance of linear chronology. Janus-faced, looking simultaneously to the past the future, the city rejects categorical approaches to its topographical syntax: [T]here are only imagined Londons, Pamela Gilbert argues, and the work of understanding them not best served by easy assumptions about fictive versus factual discourse or 'art' versus science, journalism, popular culture, or what have you. (2002: 3) Viewed in terms of its fluctuating boundaries, London reflects Donald's notion of the modern city, devoid of any ontological coherence outside the realm of narrative representation:To put it polemically, there no such thing as city. Rather the city designates the space produced by the interaction of historically geographically specific institutions, social relations of production reproduction, practices of government, forms media of communication, so forth. …

<p id="C2">According to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), metaphors allow people to rely on concrete, familiar knowledge such as spatial experience to understand abstract concepts such as time. For example, many languages throughout the world tend to associate the front side of space with the future and the back side with the past. Abundant evidence has shown that people think about time according to the space-time mappings in their speech. However, recent lines of research have suggested that people may not spatialize time as their language suggests. According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, people’s implicit space-time mappings are shaped by their cultural attitudes toward time. Compared to <italic>Han</italic> Chinese, <italic>Qiang</italic> Chinese tend to focus more on past times and older generations and place more values on their tradition and culture. Thus, it can be hypothesized that <italic>Qiang</italic> Chinese, who focus more on the past, should be more likely to conceptualize the past as in front of them than <italic>Han</italic> Chinese. <p id="C101">In Experiment 1, we administered a “time diagram task” in which participants were presented with a sheet depicting a cartoon character seen from above with a box ahead of him and another behind him. Participants were told that the character visited a friend who loved plants yesterday, and tomorrow he would be going to visit a friend who loves animals (or vice versa, as event-to-space assignment was counterbalanced). Participants were asked to place “plant” and “animal” in the boxes. In Experiment 2, we used a Temporal Focus Scale to quantify the proposed difference in temporal focus between <italic>Han</italic> and <italic>Qiang</italic> Chinese. It consisted of 8 assertions denoting opinions about past- and future-related topics. In Experiment 3, <italic>Han</italic> and <italic>Qiang</italic> Chinese participants were asked to complete a time classification task. In this task, they categorized the words denoting past or future events by pressing a corresponding response key placed ahead or behind a starting point. <p id="C102">Results from Experiments 1 and 2 showed that <italic>Qiang</italic> participants, who tend to be more past-focused, were also more likely to place the future event in the box behind the character and the past event in the box ahead of him. By contrast, <italic>Han</italic> Chinese showed no preferences for past-in-front mapping or future-in-front mapping, as predicted by their equally high agreement with past focus and future focus items. Experiment 3 showed that <italic>Qiang</italic> Chinese showed a response facilitation when processing temporal words in a direction compatible to their implicit space-time mappings as shown in Experiment 1 (i.e., past is front and future is back). However, <italic>Han</italic> Chinese did not show a response facilitation because they may have the same preference for both past-in-front and future-in-front mappings. <p id="C103">There are two contrasting views on how people implicitly associate the past and future with the front and back. Metaphor Structure View posits that people think about time the way they talk about in their spoken metaphors. However, we found no evidence in current studies for supporting this view since the directions of implicit space-time mappings in <italic>Han</italic> and <italic>Qiang</italic> Chinese were different despite both using the same spoken metaphors; thus, it suggests a striking dissociation between temporal language and temporal thought. Our results appear to support the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, which suggests that people’s implicit space-time mappings are shaped by their cultural attitudes. Taken together, this research contributes to the exiting literature that within-cultural differences (e.g., ethnicity) should be considered when studying the relationship between temporal focus and implicit space-time mappings.

The paper applies an interdisciplinary perspective to a fictional text showing that fractals as mathematical models are a powerful tool for conceptualizing life experience in biographical narratives. The multilevel construction of Chatterton by Peter Ackroyd is explored on the basis of fractal metaphor theory. This research focuses on the LIFE IS A STORY conceptual fractal metaphor which is built up on analogical mappings, mental space connections, and blends. The fractal model of metaphor in biographical narrative, which is assigned to the formula LIFE IS A STORY f (1) + f (2) + f (3) + … + f (n), contains the mental space of the intentional source domain story, which provides a way to structure the understanding of the limiting target domain of the concept life. Fractal metaphors aim at making the conceptual metaphor flexible and dynamic, renewing its ability of self-development and self-perfection, transforming itself into one of the means of changeable conceptualization of reality.

The article examines, through the lens of cognitive semiotics, temporal agency and experiences that define the protestors’ identity within the space of the Floyd protests as visualized in AP sequenced news photos. The analysis points to the role of resemiotized chronotopic motifs that bring together the past, present and future times of racial discrimination. In this regard, the paper synthesizes the Bakhtinian chronotope with Multimodal Conceptual Metaphor. Synthesizing Multimodal Metaphors with the chronotope is meant to conceptualize the temporality of the social movement, assigning it agentive identity. That is, chronotopic temporality is deployed in this article as a metaphorical placeholder for movements agency and individuality. Two chronotopes interact within the visualized space of the protests: one is centred in the memories of past apartheid and a desired future, the other conceptualizes a resistant and angry present.

Based on a discussion of selected publications, this paper seeks to offer a methodical guideline to identify and analyze metaphors in non-textual data. This work is embedded in the Collaborative Research Center “Metaphors of Religion” that studies metaphorical language in religious traditions in past and present times, and throughout various regions of the world. As such, it is rooted in comparative analysis. In order to extend this comparative approach to the various kinds of media that are used to express religious content, our suggestion aligns closely with the methodic and conceptual framework of the CRC—that is based on conceptual metaphor theory and semiotics—and yet pays due attention to the specificities of non-textual media, such as images, artefacts, or architecture.

This research investigates the narrative structure of Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and the Traitor (2018) through the framework of Labov’s (1972) Narrative Schema Model and examines how the biography aligns with the model’s six core components. The research builds on earlier applications of Labov’s framework to biographical writing and tests its consistency in another of Macintyre’s works. A qualitative method is used to identify and analyse each schema in the text. The findings revealed that The Spy and the Traitor adheres fully to Labov’s six-part structure: exhibiting dual abstracts, detailed orientation, sequential complicating actions, layered evaluations (external, embedded, and action-based), clear resolution, and a conclusive coda. The narrative maintains chronological order and confirms the model’s strength in biographical storytelling. These findings reinforced the adaptability of Labov’s model across biographical narratives and highlighted its potential applicability to broader nonfiction genres. The research contributes to narrative theory by showing that biographical writing not only conforms to but also enriches Labov’s schemas through complex evaluative layering and structural precision.

In recent years, there has been significant progress in developing Interactive Storytelling systems, in particular in terms of the underlying AI techniques. There has been an emerging consensus on the AI approach, in particular the use of planning systems. However, these have concentrated on the generation of a sequence of narrative actions, staged through the behaviour of virtual actors. In order to achieve the long-term objective of implementing interactive media that would reproduce the aesthetic qualities of traditional films, most interactive storytelling systems are still missing the ability to generate dialogues between characters. We describe an extension of our Interactive Storytelling approach which integrates dialogue generation within narrative situations. Our unit of generation is the dialogue act (pair of utterances) and one main objective is to reproduce realistic dialogue phenomena based on implicit forms of expression. The emphasis is also on adopting a unified approach relating narrative representations to the linguistic form of the generated utterances. From a representation of active narrative goals and the emotional affinity between characters, our system is able to derive a set of parameters governing various aspects of the linguistic form to be generated. We illustrate this approach on several implemented examples.

This article examines the narratives involved in the planning of Jätkäsaari (Helsinki), an industrial harbour environment currently being redeveloped. It starts out with an analysis of Hyvä jätkä/Good Chap (Hannu Mäkelä, 2009), a literary novel commissioned by the city to promote the area, arguing that this cultural product should not be seen merely as a piece of cultural branding. Rather, the novel’s fictional construction of the area’s past and future draws attention to the narrative characteristics of planning itself. Using the concepts of literary genre and metaphor, an examination of Jätkäsaari’s planning narratives shows the ambivalent and often contradictory planning visions of the area. This study aims at re-examining the considerable research tradition in urban and planning studies that sees urban planning as a form of storytelling, by applying concepts from literary and narrative theory to the analysis of planning narratives.