Narrative Dimensions Research Articles

Rethinking the moral in narrating trauma: Ethnographic insights on clinical reasoning.

This article explores the moral dimensions of the clinical narration of suffering in a highly political context. Based on an ethnographic analysis of psychotherapists' discussions of a clinical case related to the Israeli evacuation from Gaza, I illustrate how the care providers navigate competing moral logics while explaining the reasons for the patient's experience. Capturing moments of the simultaneous appearance of different explanatory models, informed by contradictory moral grammars, during the process of clinical reasoning allowed me to obtain a complex and nuanced picture of social reality in which the experience of the patient simultaneously appeared as both a success and a failure of communal education. The ethnographic observation and analysis of clinical reasoning challenge the assumed connection between practitioners' ideological identifications and their narration of suffering, and allow moving beyond the idea of coherent moral subjects who act according to a priori moral values informed by political ideology. This perspective is particularly significant for the field of traumatic suffering because it questions the moral grammar of trauma narratives that imply unambiguous and idealized distinctions between victims, perpetrators, and witnesses, revealing the complex dynamics of suffering and caring.

Fumetti di fantascienza, letteratura popolare e previsione sociale

The scientific and science fiction story has always represented a significant part of the comics universe. With distant precursors grappling with ideas, insights and reflections that would have been developed by modern authors, science fiction comics had its center of development in the United States, before and during the Great Depression. The American authors were first flanked by Italian, English, Japanese artists, then the French-speaking artists and Latin Americans. In the course of almost a century of comic science fiction literature, the multiplicity of contributions and a wide narrative dimension has developed offering to the reader, through texts and images, metaphors of the present, visions of the future and never banal reflections on the interaction among man, the environment that surrounds him, science and technology. The article, through the presentation and analysis of some of the most important experiences of the genre, proposes a reflection on the language and, mainly, on the value of science fiction comics, which is, at the same time, narrative form, hybrid medium and information resource.

O funcionamento discursivo dos textos de contracapa da “Coleção Vampiro”

The present article presents a comprehensive study on the discursive functioning of the detective novels back cover texts of the Coleção Vampiro (CV), published every month in Portugal between 1947 and 2008. From a descriptive and linguistic perspective which assumes the discourse types (Bronckart 1997, 2008) as a category of analysis, they are analysed the back cover texts of 104 volumes from the CV (14,6% of the collection), adopting a mixed methodology which integrates both quantitative and qualitative methods. It is concluded that, in the first part of the collection, the book cover texts present a predominantly expositive dimension as well as a strong implication of both the speaker and the receiver, which contributes to the dissemination and popularization of the detective novel genre. In the second part, the texts present a predominantly narrative dimension and they are marked by the erasure of the speaker and the receiver, corresponding almost entirely to the synopsis of the detective novel in question

The Narrative Dimension of Productive Work: Craftsmanship and Collegiality in the Quest for Excellence in Modern Productivity

The Narrative Dimension of Productive Work: Craftsmanship and Collegiality in the Quest for Excellence in Modern Productivity

“We shall not flag or fail, we shall go on to the end”

Abstract Focusing on the anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong, this article presents an analysis of Twitter posts adopting the hashtags #antiELAB, #NoChinaExtradition and #HongKongProtests. The analysis explores the public narrative among the collective identity of Hongkongers opposing the extradition bill as events unfolded during mid-2019 in Hong Kong. To do so, we adopt Bhatia’s (2015) multi-perspective framework for the Discourse of Illusion, which takes a three-prong approach to the study of argument construction and establishing legitimacy. Specifically, through the interrelated components of (1) historicity, (2) linguistic and semiotic action, and (3) social impact, the dimensions of the hashtag narrative that emerged on Twitter were explored.

‘Why should not Citadels become Academies?’ Transatlantic Tercentenaries, Higher Education and Local Pasts in Britain after the First World War

AbstractThis article examines two transatlantic tercentenaries that took place around the end of the First World War: that of the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh (1918) and that of the sailing of the Mayflower (1920). By sheer historical happenstance, these two major commemorative events were both centred on the county of Devon. Raleigh was associated with the city of Exeter, while the Mayflower pilgrims were indelibly linked with the maritime city of Plymouth. This thrusting into the limelight of two Devonian cities coincided with a regional effort to expand university education in the southwest. This article examines these two tercentenaries as case studies in the interaction between the transnational, regional and local dimensions of commemorative culture and historical narrative in Britain. It shows how, in both cases, internationalism fed regional rivalries, with national agendas peripheral at best. The article's second, related aim is to highlight a neglected aspect of scholarship on twentieth‐century memorialisation, namely educational institutions as legacies of historical commemorative events. In both the Raleigh and the Mayflower anniversaries, links between the British locale and internationalism superseded any national aims or agendas, with both Exeter and Plymouth vying to be the regional leader in higher education, each bolstered by their claims to significance in America. Although neither scheme ultimately came to fruition, the tercentenaries nevertheless left behind educational legacies, calling into question the stark divide between ‘public’ and ‘academic’ history.

Introduction

Framing this special issue within a broader understanding of the concept of aesthetics as affective, sensory, and emotional entanglements, I start this introduction by grounding the present endeavour in the scholarship on revolution, senses, and affects. I then consider the ways in which this intertwining framework of multisensory and affective modalities proves to be particularly productive in exploring the idea of nationhood and politics after revolutions. Such a focus illuminates how specific dimensions of national narratives become only perceptible once one considers the aesthetical relationship between people’s bodies and the body politic. As revolutions move back and forth from the nation to people’s bodily sensorium, this collection uncovers the multiple facets of (post)revolutionary collective identities. This sustained attention to the perceptual, as a zone not only of ‘cultural intimacy’ but of national determinacy, I propose, also provides an occasion to reckon with politicsbeyond revolutionitself.

Iconicity (of Reading). Lolita

The paper focuses on the issue of iconicity of (printed) literary narrative and proposes the idea of iconic reading (or iconicity of reading). It discusses Peircean notion of iconic sign, examines its use within the field of iconicity studies in language and literature (Olga Fischer, Christina Ljungberg, Winfried Nöth, etc.), and considers the differences of paradigms in iconicity research: (1) iconicity as a permanent property of a sign; imitation pattern – form mimes meaning; (2) iconicity as a variable quality of a sign, actualized by the speaker; imitation pattern – form miming form; (3) iconicity as the ground of human thought and a function of a sign, actualized by the reader / reading. Consideration of the differences within the field of iconicity research helps to reveal the underestimated textual aspects that actualize iconic dimension of literary narrative, and inspires to examine their role in the analysis of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, precisely, its “Foreword” (both original English and Russian versions). The analysis of the fictional “Foreword”, which establishes the pattern of iconization of the novel as a whole, and inevitably includes the references to its “main” part, shows how the novel iconizes writing. Withal, the analysis demonstrates how this iconization configures the particular model of reading, which becomes the representamen of the specific cognitive icon. The mental representamen of this icon “stands for” the specific object – the text as the tangible media product, marked by the structural and discursive traits of its own. Respectively, such (cognitive) icon represents the pattern of mimetic relationship between form and meaning, introduced by Lars Elleström (2010), – meaning mimes form, worthy of further consideration.

Constructing policy narratives for transnational mobilization: Insights from European Citizens’ Initiatives

AbstractOne of the European Union (EU) institutions’ responses to the alleged “democratic deficit” in the EU is the introduction of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). The ECI provides an agenda‐setting tool accessible to different advocacy groups. This study investigates the narrative strategies of ECI organizers to mobilize citizens across the EU. Which storytelling characteristics are present in the policy narratives used by ECIs? To address this question theoretically, we rely on the Narrative Policy Framework. Empirically, we examine 59 ECIs registered between 2012 and 2020. The analysis concentrates on three dimensions of policy narratives: the mentioning of (i) story characters and (ii) cost‐benefit frames as forms of narrative strategy to increase public attention, and (iii) evidence as a means of persuasion. Our findings show that ECIs predominantly make use of the devil shift in their policy narratives and use cost‐benefit frames and evidence to expand the scope of conflict.

What Drives Narrative Engagement With Music?

Although people across multiple cultures have been shown to experience music narratively, it has proven difficult to disentangle whether narrative dimensions of music derive from learned extramusical associations within a culture or from less experience-dependent elements of the music, such as musical contrast. Toward this end, two experiments investigated factors contributing to listeners’ narrative engagement with music, comparing the narrative experiences of Western and Chinese instrumental music for listeners in two suburban locations in the United States with those of listeners living in a remote rural village in China with different patterns of musical exposure. Supporting an enculturation perspective where learned extramusical associations (i.e., Topicality) play an important role in narrative perceptions of music, results from the first experiment show that for Western listeners, greater Topicality, rather than greater Contrast, increases narrative engagement, as long as listeners have sufficient exposure to its patterns of use within a culture. Strengthening this interpretation, results for the second experiment, which directly manipulated Topicality and Contrast, show that reducing an excerpt’s Topicality, but not its Contrast reduces listeners’ narrative engagement.

On its path to become ‘North European’: political climate change narrative in Latvia

The European Green Deal is the European Union’s latest expression of its ambition to become a world leader in addressing climate change. This study seeks to examine how Latvia – an EU member state – deals with the change brought about by a changing climate and the EU’s response to it. Informed by a strategic narrative approach, this study demonstrates that Latvia – originally hesitant to address climate change – has rebranded and repositioned itself as an active promoter of carbon neutrality, meanwhile constructing an identity narrative of Latvia as a pragmatic and reliable EU partner by embracing an image of a North European country at the government level. The narrative seeks to appeal to a Nordic life-style and resonates with levels of social welfare that Latvia aspires to achieve. By exploring how EU member states construct identity narratives around the EU’s institutional constraints, this study adds the dimension of narratives and perceptions to processes of Europeanisation.

분단의 서술, 그 너머의 신체들: 영화 〈비무장지대〉(1965)를 중심으로

In this article, the images Demilitarized Zone in the Cultural Film were discussed in association with the perception of division. Specifically, the discussion focused on a few things: First, the dramatic film that was shown as a ”semi-documentary” analyzed the aspects of the ”demilitarized zone” and the ”body” of the two children reproduced in the cultural film Demilitarized Zone, focusing on the melodramatic elements that were removed in the process of later being re-produced as cultural films; second, the term ”artificial nature” was presented to highlight the aspects of the Demilitarized Zone as the space includes and absorbs the remnants of division and war. Third, if the Demilitarized Zone is a space that creates a new form of order on an ecological and materialist level, two children wandering here present a new form of life that integrates with that order; it relates to the birth of a new body that goes beyond the public perception of the ethnic tragedy caused by division. especially the body of a girl infant symbolized that is a prime example of the discourse of a korean ethnic tragedy and the way it goes beyond the dimensions of the narrative associated with it; as a result, the cultural film Demilitarized Zone will have to be understood as a text that reveals the deep, multilayered aporia that divisional reality consupposes beyond the general myths, feelings, and narrative dimensions of division.

Narrative Features in The Lady in the Van

The Lady in the Van is about the odd friendship between Bennett, a writer, and Miss Shepherd, an eccentric homeless woman. This paper intends to discuss the narrative features of the film version from David Bordwell’s three dimensions (narration, plot structure and story world) of film narrative. The film presents us with a unique point of view, a seemingly disjointed but implicitly connected plot structure, and a story world in which the characters have their own goals to achieve. Bennett and Miss Shepherd have got to know each other better in fifteen years. Miss Shepherd is Bennett’s guide in life, teaching him how to write and how to get along with his mother.

Flowers, Women, and Work in the Socialist Fairy Tale: Toward a Feminist, Materialist, and Ecocritical Approach

Hedwig Dohm's 1870 fairy tale “Blumenduft,” a tale of a princess who finds fulfillment in work, illustrates the merits of industry alongside the failings of royalty. A century later, East German production company DEFA released Dornröschen (1971), echoing similar discourses through the traditionally feminine craft of spinning. Unlike the Grimm paradigm of passive princesses, diligence in these tales is not associated with marriage or domesticity. Rather, labor is tied to broader social structures, and the conventional nature‐culture binary is divided along class‐based lines. Both narratives evoke the Grimm tradition to suit new sociocultural contexts and showcase female empowerment enacted via “natural” interventions. Through the framework of feminist material ecocriticism, this article examines the connections between nature, women, and the working classes in these tales. A close analysis of these texts reveals the critical and political dimensions of nature and narrative as well as the enduring relevance of German fairy tales.

WELL-BEING: CONCEPTUAL AND MEDICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Objectives: To present a conceptual and medical perspective on studies on wellbeing
 and its determinants.
 Method: The notion of well-being as a transient state and as a stable trait is
 considered conceptually.
 Results and Discussion: This consideration uncovers several linguistic dimensions
 relevant to well-being: subjectivity, multidimensionality, dynamism, contextdependency,
 complexity. These are related to the notions of health and quality of
 life, discussing the narrative dimensions of personal experience and the need to
 consider the psychophysiological triad composed of behavior, mentation, and
 physiology in the evaluation.
 Conclusion: The humanistic dimension of well-being and its determinants should
 be considered as a precondition for an attempt at a biopsychosocial/integrative
 approach. The methodical approach represented by overt language behavior is
 emphasized as important.

A Narrativist Revival?

Abstract Up till the 1980s narrativist philosophers of history were mainly interested in the cognitivist dimension of historical narrative. With Hayden White this interest was exchanged for an exclusive preoccupation with the literary aspects of the historian’s narrative representation of the past. However, it may seem that a revival of pre-Whitean narrativist philosophy of history is at hand. Two recent books suggest as much: one by Chiel van den Akker published in 2018 and one more by Paul Roth that came out in 2020. Obviously, a narrativist revival can take two different forms. It may aim at providing pre-Whitean narrativism with a more up-to-date philosophical basis or at guiding it into new directions. It will be argued in this review-essay that the book by Roth mainly does the former, whereas the book by Van den Akker does both.

Beyond health and wealth: the impact of COVID-19 and anti-COVID-19 measures on the narrative dimension of human life

Beyond health and wealth: the impact of COVID-19 and anti-COVID-19 measures on the narrative dimension of human life

Social Representations Theory and Young Africans' Creative Narratives about HIV/AIDS, 1997-2014.

Research on social representations (SRs) has often focused more on categorical than narrative-based representations. However, narratives are considered to play a key role in the organization of social representations. This paper describes an empirical study of some 2,000 creative narratives about HIV written by young Africans from five countries between 1997 and 2014 and examines the theoretical, methodological and applied relevance of SRT for this study and the implications of the study for the intersection between narrative and SRT. The study is unusual within the SR paradigm: it is temporal and cross-national; addresses a subject whose science has evolved over time; and uses creative narratives as its data source. A narrative perspective foregrounds holistic understandings of SRs as systems of thought. Creative narratives fit well within an SR framework. Our triangulating methodologies foreground categorical or narrative dimensions depending on the objectives of specific sub-studies. Central Core Theory provides a framework to articulate stability and change within narrative representations. In creative narrative, objectification also happens at the level of plot and characters, such that dominant cultural narratives can be viewed as a form of hegemonic SR. We link with health communication and embrace more critical streams within SR research.

Contesting the European Union in a changing climate: policy narratives and the justification of supranational governance

ABSTRACT Climate change policy is an important test case for how political agents use narratives to address complex policy issues and define its scope and impacts in a multi-level context. Harnessing a theoretical approach based on framing analysis and the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), the article asks to what degree agents at the level of domestic parliamentary discourse expand narrative stories of climate action to agents and institutions at the European level. Empirically, the present study investigates deliberations during the current elective period of the German Bundestag (2017-) on climate change and general EU debates to identify and compare narrative accounts of three groups of agents with opposed ideological views and institutional roles: namely, delegates of Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Alliance90/Greens (B90), as well as representatives of the Federal Government. Testing hypotheses addressing the form, strategy and scope of climate policy narratives articulated by these three groups, we find some but not all classical expectations of research based on the NPF confirmed: While narratives of the Greens and AfD differ strongly concerning their underlying beliefs and forms of narrative vilification and dramatization, no evidence is found for the assumption that climate-sceptical discourse has a stronger European narrative dimension.

Las formas narrativas del populismo: un método de indagación

El artículo propone un método para analizar los discursos populistas, con énfasis en la dimensión narrativa: el Análisis Narrativo por Capas. Este se construyó integrando teorías posestructuralistas, conceptos de la narratología, de la teoría literaria y el aporte del Análisis Causal por Capas (Inayatullah, 1998). El método se apoya en premisas narratológicas, que establecen las capas de análisis sobre: la secuencia narrativa, el cronotopos, los mitos y las voces narrativas, desde las cuales es posible analizar una diversidad de corpus discursivos y se aportan nuevos elementos para la comprensión de las experiencias populistas en América Latina.