Narrative Meaning Research Articles

The Power of Wish-Vows: Ethics and Ritual Transformation in Buddhist Temples in Contemporary China

ABSTRACT Among the most noteworthy practices in Buddhist temples in China today are yuan or wish-vow actions. Wish-vows encompass both wish-making (xuyuan 许愿) and vow-giving (fayuan 发愿), with both modalities embraced by average temple-goers from a general population. Chinese Buddhist liturgies encourage ritual performers to adopt a bodhisattva stance, wishing/vowing for the well-being of all beings. This introduces an ethical dimension to yuan performances. This paper analyzes the continuity in practice between wish-making and vow-giving, exploring how popular and Buddhist understandings of ritual entangle and how ritual generates meaningful narratives for practitioners. The article shows how the human pursuit of ritual effects and ethical self-transformation are not contradictory but rather complementary processes. Considering this Chinese ritual situation deepens our comprehension of votive practices in syncretic religious traditions. Additionally, it offers a new direction for considering religious potentialities in late socialist societies. Furthermore, it usefully challenges the use of the term “prayer” in Chinese contexts. In this way, the article bridges anthropology, Chinese studies, and religious studies and enhances our conceptual toolkit for studying ongoing human transformation.

How old are you? A systematic review investigating the relationship between age and mandibular third molar maturity.

Radiographic evaluation of the maturity of mandibular third molars is a common method used for age estimation of adolescents and young adults. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the scientific base for the relationship between a fully matured mandibular third molar based on Demirjian's method and chronological age, in order to assess whether an individual is above or below the age of 18 years. The literature search was conducted in six databases until February 2022 for studies reporting data evaluating the tooth maturity using Demirjian´s method (specifically stage H) within populations ranging from 8 to 30 years (chronological age). Two reviewers screened the titles and abstracts identified through the search strategy independently. All studies of potential relevance according to the inclusion criteria were obtained in full text, after which they were assessed for inclusion by two independent reviewers. Any disagreement was resolved by a discussion. Two reviewers independently evaluated the risk of bias using the assessment tool QUADAS-2 and extracted the data from the studies with low or moderate risk of bias. Logistic regression was used to estimate the relationship between chronological age and proportion of subjects with a fully matured mandibular third molar (Demirjian´s tooth stage H). A total of 15 studies with low or moderate risk of bias were included in the review. The studies were conducted in 13 countries and the chronological age of the investigated participants ranged from 3 to 27 years and the number of participants ranged between 208 and 5,769. Ten of the studies presented the results as mean age per Demirjian´s tooth stage H, but only five studies showed the distribution of developmental stages according to validated age. The proportion of subjects with a mandibular tooth in Demirjian´s tooth stage H at 18 years ranged from 0% to 22% among males and 0 to 16% in females. Since the studies were too heterogenous to perform a meta-analysis or a meaningful narrative review, we decided to refrain from a GRADE assessment. The identified literature does not provide scientific evidence for the relationship between Demirjian´s stage H of a mandibular third molar and chronologic age in order to assess if an individual is under or above the age of 18 years.

Semiotic ladder: the schema of producing meanings in narrative

Abstract A model called the “semiotic ladder,” which consists of “consecutive semiotic squares,” is proposed in this paper, through which the meanings of the deep structure of a narrative can be depicted as fluid and dynamic. It shows the stages of producing meanings in the narrative, from beginning to end. To see this, several narratives in the epic and mythological genres are analyzed in order to discover their abstract and deep structural meanings, and to prove the dynamic nature of meaning in the semiotic ladder. According to the analysis, the process of the semiotic ladder depicts the displacement and fluidity of narrative meanings using consecutive semiotic squares, and this pattern can be applied to and implemented in all narratives. Also, the semiotic ladder allows us to clearly observe the pattern of movement of the narrative subject schema in the path of accomplishing the object.

The Hadith of Fadha'il Al-Suwar as A Motivation for Tadabbur Al-Qur'an: A Comparative Study between Ibn Katsir and Al-Tsa'alibiy in the Interpretation of Surah Al-Baqarah

The virtues of surahs or verses in the Qur'an is a part of the Qur'anic discourse. They are also mentioned in hadith literatures as components of the major subject of narration from the Prophet (PBUH) and his companions. In the science of Quranic interpretation, citing narrations about the virtues of verses and surahs is part of the method employed by several commentators where they became the primary component of the introduction to the interpretation of a surah. The quality of hadiths, in particular raises a number of concerns among researchers in this context. In addition, the connection between the virtues indicated in a hadith or narrative and the content and purposes of the surah are worth a study. The primary purpose of this study is to examine, evaluate, and formulate the hadith selection methods of two leading commentators from the tradition-based interpretation, namely Ibn Katsir and al-Tsa'alibiy as well as their approach in combining the meaning of hadith or narration with regard to content and the objective of the surah in the context of attracting the attention of the audience. This study employs the technique of document analysis to two texts, namely Tafsir Ibn Kathir and Tafsir al-Tha'alabiy, in their interpretations of surah al-Baqarah. The study concluded that these two commentators cite authentic and valid hadiths regarding fadail. However, no significant effort is made to connect the benefits of the surah mentioned in the hadith to the surah's objectives.

Costumes as palimpsests: Accumulation of narratives through reuse of costumes in film and theatre

Palimpsest is a term traditionally associated with parchment manuscripts, referring to a writing surface on which the original text has been overwritten. As demonstrated by the famous Archimedes Palimpsest, despite the reuse of the parchment, it retains traces of its previous texts. This article argues that the term palimpsest can also describe costumes used in performance. This article seeks to investigate questions such as, what happens when a costume is taken out of one narrative and placed into another? If a costume is inscribed with narrative, like a palimpsest, does the original narrative remain, clinging to the fabric like ink on parchment? Drawing on Dillon and Colwell, the costume’s life cycle is a palimpsestic process through which the costume becomes layered as a material object and as a carrier of narrative meaning. These layers can be seen through the survival of the memory attached to the costume. The forms of survival for these memories are demonstrated by using theoretical frameworks proposed by Sampson and Pearce for analysing objects connected with meaning through memory. By exploring how the past survives through memory in the form of material culture, associated narratives, or individual memory, this article reveals how the palimpsest layers of a costume can be seen. As a result, costumes can continue to accumulate meaning even after they cease to be reused. The exploration of costumes as palimpsests reveals the remarkable ability of costumes to transform physically and metaphorically to reflect multiple narratives.

From Monumental Histories to a Multiplicity of Histories: The Persistence and Meaning of Master Narratives of Jewish History

Histories like Heinrich Graetz’s Geschichte der Juden (1854–1876) may have once been prominent and popular, but more recently this genre has fallen out of favor as scholars generally no longer try to write monumental histories of the Jews. This article traces the turn away from monumental histories and how it represents fundamental changes in how scholars understand Jewish history: Graetz and his contemporaries constructed Jewish history as a unified field, but today some question the notion of “a” Jewish history, instead looking to a multiplicity of histories and narratives. Nevertheless, a cohort of leading scholars and popular writers continue to produce synthetic histories of the Jews, and many still produce linear narratives of Jewish history for introductory Jewish history courses. Consequently, this article brings together historiography and pedagogy to comprehend the persistence and meaning of master narrative frameworks as scholars and the public continue to envision Jewish history.

‘Seated at the Right Hand of the Father’: The Meaning of the Empty Tomb Narrative in Mark

The following essay argues that Mark’s empty tomb narrative taps into broader Jewish and Graeco-Roman cultural assumptions in which the disappearance of a body might suggest that the person concerned had been taken up into the realm of the gods. The purpose of Mark 16.1–8, therefore, is not to prove Jesus’s physical, fleshly resurrection, but rather to show that he is now in the heavenly realm, ‘seated at the right hand of the Father’ (14.62).

The Nightmare Island: Representations of St. Barthélemy in Swedish Novels

The Nightmare Island: Representations of St. Barthélemy in Swedish Novels

СОБЫТИЕ: ИСТОРИЯ ВНЕ СЮЖЕТА

The author is looking for an opportunity to analyze the nature of a historical event, free from deterministic and constructivist premises of scientifical thinking, and not reducible to the logic and pragmatics of the structuralist and narrativist approaches. It starts from Heidegger’s understanding of it as “un-overpassed” (das Unumgängliche) scientific historiography and the so-called “unhidden” truth (aletheia). Since within the Heideggerian “being-historical thinking” the event reveals its derivative from the narrative structure of the “history of being”, an attempt is made to clarify the properties of the historical event with the help of its neopragmatist interpretation proposed in the works of R. Rorty. The latter sees the merit of Heidegger in the discovery of the contingency of any human project. However, Heidegger, according to Rorty, was not up to the mark of his discovery. He lacked the self-irony to refrain from presenting his own, finite and contingent, history of Western thought in terms of the “history of being” and the “event” of his truth. At the same time, Rorty does not hide his skepticism about the ability of philosophers to do without the “fateful” historical meaning. Rorty does not provide for any specificity of the historical event, reducing it without a trace in favor of private “selfcreation” carried out by means of fictional narrative. Therefore, the author finds the work “The Effect of Reality in Historical Writing” by F. Ankersmit more suitable for clarifying the contingent nature of a historical event, according to which the “non-functionality” of the details of ekphrasis can radically change the meaning of the historical narrative and even abolish the distance separating the past from the present. The text ends with a brief overview of the conceptions of historical event, which are developed in modern historical theory independently of Ankersmit, but reveal a similar view of the contingency of this event.

Believing Asylum-Seeking Women: Doing Gender in Legal Narratives of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

In this article I seek to expand the understanding of what it means to credibly “do gender” for women seeking asylum in the United States. I present an empirical analysis of documents related to 30 women's affirmative asylum claims in the US from 2001–2018, which centre experiences of sexual and gender-based violence. My analysis reveals how women's credibility is achieved interactionally and institutionally when their written narratives and interview interactions reflect culturally salient and organizationally-embedded ideas about trauma and memory, culture and violence and, thresholds of harm. I demonstrate how credibility is refracted through these deeply gendered legal and cultural lenses, and how law and gender, in interaction, reframe and reconstitute the meaning of individual actions and narratives, producing and reinforcing a limited range of credible stories about gender-based violence that these women can tell.

The Poetics of Sound in H. P. Lovecraft’s Literature on the Example of the Story The Outsider

The reality in the works of H. P. Lovecraft is described as strange, inhumanistic, and alien to the mankind but it is not mystical. On the contrary, the creations and events described by the writer are presented as material facts of the world. In modern philosophy following Graham Harman this view of the world is called weird-realism or weird-materialism. This paper explores one of the media used in building Lovecraft’s ontology and proposes a philosophical and cultural analysis of the new concept of The Sound Out of Space in Lovecraft studies to describe the audial medium of the weirdontology and weird-epistemology of H. P. Lovecraft. The name of the concept should refer to the headline of the famous work of the writer The Colour Out of Space (1927). The concept in the text is presented through the poetics of sound, which is the whole set of ways of representing the audial field. The article consists of the introduction with a brief historical overview, the methodological study of sound as an otherworldly medium, sound mapping of the story The Outsider (1921), the analysis of the narrative meaning of sound, discussion of the results gathered and the conclusion. The research hypothesis assumes that different media of the Lovecraftian weird-materialism have different properties and implement different modes of access to the truth of weird-reality, and their understanding can add something new to the knowledge about the strange ontology of the writer. The authors develop a phenomenological typology of sound adapting the methodology of Michel Chion and embedding it into the context of the poetics of the Lovecraftian universe. The resulting three groups of sounds represented by six types of sounds are used to describe the concept and are applied to the story The Outsider. The results show a remarkable distribution of certain types of referenced sounds within the plot composition of the story. This makes it possible to supplement the ideas about the features of the world of the story and the internal state of the protagonist, as well as to interpret the denouement of the plot more fully in the context of Lovecraft's epistemology. The poetics of Lovecraft's sound is closely connected with other means of representing the strangeness of reality, its weird-materiality. At the same time, sound as a unique medium offers specific opportunities for creating artistic images, an atmosphere, and displaying the writer's philosophical intention. This strategy of sound research of a literary text can be applied to other literary works.

Bringing Covid to College: Incoming First-Year College Students' Making Meaning of the Pandemic.

As time passes from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, new cohorts of emerging adults transition to college, carrying with them experiences and effects of the pandemic on their lives and development. This study uses semi-structured interviews and reflexive thematic analysis to investigate how a cohort of 36 young people made narrative meaning of the pandemic in relation to their identities. Data were collected at the beginning of their first year at college and focused on their experiences of the pandemic, its impact on their lives, and the lessons they took away from it. Findings demonstrate that even amid deep and varied challenges, young people coped in nuanced ways and some built narratives of personal growth, development, new social identities, and maturing values. The study contributes to greater depth in understanding the impacts of the pandemic on young people as they develop into emerging adults.

Single by chance or by choice? The social meanings of singlehood and narratives of choice among unpartnered adults in Israel

ABSTRACT Researchers have proposed various explanations for the increase in singlehood in post-industrialized countries, but the questions of how singles interpret their singlehood and what social meanings they attribute to it have received less attention. Using data collected through in-depth interviews with singles from various backgrounds in Israel, this study examined whether singlehood was considered the result of individual choice or constraints. Findings revealed that most participants expressed a strong wish to marry and viewed their singlehood as the result of unfavourable life circumstances, a pattern we call ‘normative singlehood’. Their narratives were aligned with the mainstream norm that does not consider singlehood to be a legitimate way of life. By contrast, a minority, all women from very traditional backgrounds, treated singlehood in terms of deliberate choice and considered it a desired alternative to a conjugal relationship, a pattern we referred to as ‘challenging singlehood.’ These women expressed strong educational and occupational goals at the price of distancing themselves from their communities of origin. Overall, the study points to the limitations of the discourse of choice at the intersection of individualism and familism and suggests that the hegemonic status of marriage persists despite normative change in favour of deinstitutionalization.

Song form and storytelling in mainstream metal

This article builds on a new theory of metal song form () to show how different versions of compound AABA form can carry narrative meaning, illustrated by analyses of a number of famous metal songs in mainstream (i.e. not underground/extreme) styles. First, I discuss how some songs about rituals use conventional compound AABA form such that the ‘transformation’ event of the ritual occurs during the song’s B section, focusing on examples by Mercyful Fate and Ghost. Next, I show how several metal ballads use a shortened version of the conventional form (AAB) to depict a protagonist who loses control, getting ‘stuck’ at the same time as the form gets ‘stuck’ in the B section, focusing on examples by Metallica and Pantera. I end with a short analysis showing how aspects of these two established strategies are combined in a unique pairing of form and narrative in Iron Maiden’s ‘Run to the Hills’. As I analyse these songs, I explore how musical form can structure fans’ participation in the music and shape their experiences of these songs’ stories.

The Russian Origin of hybrid warfare as a tool to promote the Anti-Russian Agenda in Western Society

The author examines the publications of Western authors on the subject of hybrid warfare from 2014 to 2022, inclusive. The purpose of the study is to analyze the views of Western political and military experts that hybrid warfare is a development of Russian military thought, as one of the mechanisms to promote the anti-Russian agenda. The subject of the study is the publications of Western researchers on the topics of information and hybrid warfare from 2014 to 2022. The object of the study is a Russophobic narrative created around the phenomenon of hybrid warfare by Western political and military experts. The Russophobic narrative means a constructed sequence of images and ideas of an anti-Russian orientation, clothed in the form of a scientific narrative. Due to the huge array of publications for the period from 2014 to 2022, the work analyzed studies reflecting the main specifics of the views of Western authors on the subject under consideration. According to the results of the study, it was revealed that Western researchers began to attribute hybrid warfare to the development of Russian military theorists in 2014, which falls on a new round of active confrontation between Russia and the United States and the beginning of an active anti-Russian campaign in the West. Hybrid warfare has become a journalistic cliche today, which experts and journalists use to describe any actions that do not fit within the framework of traditional ideas about the principles of conventional warfare. Based on initially false and unsubstantiated theses, Western authors accuse Russia of waging a "barbaric war" on the territory of Ukraine in the period from 2014 to 2022. This study revealed that all the tools and elements of hybrid warfare described by Western experts have been successfully used by the United States and the NATO bloc in the course of modern military conflicts. Thus, the humanitarian sphere in the West has turned into another element of propaganda.

DER VERWUDETЕ SOKRATES BY BERTOLT BRECHT: PECULIARITIES OF NARRATIVE SYSTEM

Poetics is used to characterize the fictional and philosophical concept of B. Brecht’s short story, as well as the narrative means employed to create the image of protagonist – philosopher Socrates who finds himself in a crisis during the battle with Persians. The paper reveals the sense-creating role of the short story composition. It is demonstrated that in terms of narration type the story can be divided into two unequal parts: the first part is a (quasi) encyclopaedia article where Socrates is depicted as a philosopher and educator, a courageous person who met his end with dignity and a brave warrior. The second part consists of a number of visual images-stories that can be conditionally named as follows: “Socrates before the battle”, “Socrates and a small shield”, “Socrates criticizes suppliers”, “Soldiers and Socrates at halt”, “Commander’s shout”, “Battle landscape”, “Memories and reflections of irritated Socrates about his evening conversation with a young foolish aristocrat who commanded cavalry”; “The aristocrat details his battle plan”; “Socrates’ ironic attitude to this plan and his thinking about it”; “Escape”, “Imitation of the attack against Persians”, “Wounded Socrates is carried away”, “Socrates and his wife”, “Socrates glory”, “Philosophical musings of Socrates-pacifist about the causes of war”. The peculiarities of B. Brecht’s narrative system are studied.
 One of them is that every paragraph centered around Socrates is an expressive image which can be realized on the canvas, on the stage and in the cinema. It was found that every scene, in its dynamics, reveals the protagonist’s character, his ways of thinking and krainia under different circumstances. It was established that the scenes of Socrates’ escape and the imitation of the army attack against the Persians are the most dynamic.

Narrative modeling and its implications for cultural practices

Abstract Paul Cobley stated that the semiotics of narrative should not be conflated with narratology. This statement becomes a starting point for an inquiry into the semiotics of narrative by looking at the concept of narrative signs and its future as a new theory of narrative. Narrative signs embedding semiotic processes convey the meaning of narrative in the areas of the prelinguistic, the linguistic, and the extralinguistic by way of signs, models, and semiosis. What is more, the concept of narrative modeling for Cobley enables further inquiry into cultural activity through the act of narration for transvaluation. In this regard, a new theory of narrative involves time, emotion, abduction, and the dialogic self, leading to the narrative-related ideas of cognition, identity, and human subjectivity. Based on Peirce’s semiotics and a biosemiotic approach, narrative modeling makes human beings participate in sign activity, that is, cultural activity through dialogic interaction between culture and nature. Consequently, this paper proposes that the study of the mysterious narrative through narrative modeling is geared to seeing how it affects humans and also how they see and make a world through various cultural practices.

Проблема смысла смерти в эпосе Дж.Р.Р. Толкина «Властелин колец» Часть II. Бесконечный и смертный мир Толкина

This article deals with the theme of death in Tolkien’s trilogy “The Lord of the Rings”, which both the author himself and numerous researchers of his texts rec­ognized as the key to understanding of the entire religious and philosophical content of his work. Here this topic is analyzed within the framework of the se­mantic opposition formulated by the concepts of “being towards death” and “es­caping from death”. The article attempts to compare how the theme of death is revealed in a new literary genre which developed during and shortly after the Second World War – the author’s fairy tale (intended primarily for adults) – and how this theme is presented in the concepts of post-war existentialism, espe­cially by Sartre and Heidegger. As a methodology for this comparison this article uses the theory of P. Ricoeur – according to which both literature and philosophy can be considered as two different and partly opposite strategies for “taming time” (by turning it into human time, the time of culture). In the context of this theory, the article also analyzes another problem related to the first one, namely the problem of the mutual influence of the “real world” of human history and the “fictional world” of a literary work. The article confirms the idea expressed by Ricoeur that large-scale events of history can be reflected in a literary work indi­rectly (namely by using complication of the spatio-temporal structure that forms the artistic world of the work). In particular, events such as world wars, which sharply raise the questions of the meaning of history and the meaning of human life, can find interpretation in literary works that “recreate” the space of life and meaning with their own narrative means, both in relation to the individual – and the world as a whole.

Using the three horizons approach to explore pathways towards positive futures for agricultural landscapes with rich biodiversity

In light of the global challenges of the Anthropocene, including biodiversity loss, there are increasing calls for positive, inspirational futures to motivate action and help steer away from current, largely unsustainable trajectories. The three horizons framework is an approach in future studies that engages with normative futures and helps develop pathways towards them. However, this approach has not been applied to explore opportunities for biodiversity conservation with farming communities. We developed a template to apply the three horizons framework in combination with storytelling to explore positive futures for agricultural landscapes with rich biodiversity. We then applied this method over two workshops with a rural community in a farming landscape of south-eastern Australia facing typical contemporary challenges of an ageing population, climate change, biodiversity loss and global market uncertainty. In the workshops, six pathways for change were developed. We unpack these narratives of change to contrast problem framings, future aspirations and mechanisms of change and discuss implications for conservation. We discuss our approach to integrating diverse perspectives and values, creating actionable knowledge and highlight the role of governance and policy to support individual and collective agency. We conclude that the three horizons approach has the potential to create actionable knowledge through locally meaningful narratives of change, and thus influence priorities and empower local action. For lasting on-ground change, leadership and effective cross-scale governance is required.

트랜스내셔널 소설의 공간 서사 및 그 의미

This study was conducted to examine the meaning of space narratives in transnational novels. The formation of transnational properties was analyzed in the aspects of space symbolization, space change and space expansion. The text novels contain various stories different from each other, but spaces set in these novels are classified to one of encounter, settlement and desire in common. Encounter space can be symbolized as ‘strange site’, settlement one as ‘house’, and desire one as ‘far site’. These space types are linked to form a kind of fundamental flow that space narratives begines from encounter and change to settlement space. A variety of unique stories filled in spaces are related with the method of expression revealing writer’s opinion. The ideal space, realization of transnational world, in transnational novels is ultimate objective but people cannot arrive there. People are trying to only approximate there. Therefore transnational novel has space-oriented property. In conclusion, space narratives in transnational novels regulates the position and relation of characters, gets a direction of story change and finally indicate the transnational space.