Continuous Narrative Research Articles

A Dialogical Self Approach to Self-Innovation and Narrative Continuity in Retirement From Elite Sport

This case study aims to uncover the processes of narrative change in retirement from elite sport. Using Dialogical Self Theory, we examined resistance to retirement and narrative work in a recently retired, Swiss, male elite athlete from an individual sport. Two narrative interviews at 3-months and 1-year post retirement were analyzed using a holistic-content analysis, and an analysis of multivoicedness and innovative moments. We identified 39 I-positions and key innovative moments which were exceptions to the athlete’s problematic narrative and supported athletic retirement. Importantly, results demonstrate that the participant’s self-innovation began proactively before retirement, was necessitated by dialogue and supported by the introduction of a new future-oriented position, the position I-as-healing. Innovation continued after retirement and the position I-as self-reflective allowed the athlete to observe changes to his self-concept and restore continuity. Based on our findings, athletes should be supported in accessing a variety of I-positions to enable rich inner dialogue before they approach retirement from elite sport. Reflective practices which encourage meta-positions and help trace continuity far into their futures may also be advantageous. Practical considerations for the identification of I-positions in personal narratives during transitions are discussed.

Field Notes: Athens in Flux

These Field Notes present a fragmented and diachronic portrait of Athens through the mobilities of people and cultures, which, as they clashed, intersected, and syncretized, defined different aspects of the city. Fourteen short essays and an introduction provide glimpses into an Athens continuously marked by the movement of people, labor, crafts, and capital, from the ancient city-state to the contemporary metropolis, a telling of history that is posed against ethnocentric narratives of continuity of presence. Demonstrating a multitude of historiographical approaches and voices, the essays collected here are treated as ‘field notes’ because of their brevity in treating a nascent field of study of the Athenian built environment that crosses time periods and disciplines.

Managing organizational discontinuity in a corporate museum: case study of the Polish Vodka Museum

The article explains how corporate museums employ rhetorical history to construct a narrative of continuity against discontinuities in the organizational past. By analyzing the exhibition narratives and what these communicate to the stakeholders, the article ex- plores the case of the Polish Vodka Museum in Warsaw, which was established in the revitalized remains of a defunct vodka plant. The analysis has revealed that features of the former plant that represented continuity, such as the location, buildings, and brands, were emphasized in the narrative, while discontinuous features, such as ownership, legal status, and the core business were downplayed. The article contributes to the literature on rhetorical history, or the strategic uses of the past, by providing a case study of how corporate museums deal with organizational discontinuity by applying rhetorical tools. The case study is a corporate museum from Eastern Europe, an underrepresented region in the business history field characterized by political and socio-economic discontinuities.

Chicano Art and the Mass Media

This essay explores three paintings by Mel Casas dating to 1967. I argue that these paintings communicate the artist’s critical consciousness about the social disadvantages of Mexican Americans, both historically and at the crucial period of change that led to the formation of Chicano groups in San Antonio, Texas. Casas incorporates skin tones in his painted characters, which prompts a racialized interpretation. The analysis is grounded in the dualistic picture space represented in Casas’s remarkable series, the Humanscapes, where the artist both critiqued and incorporated mass media and advertising images. To construct an interpretative context for these works, I explore sources extracted from San Antonio newspapers, tracing debates about the changing racialization of Mexican Americans and about the formation of combative political groups in this city where Casas lived and worked. The three paintings, then, engage with a politicized context and with the artist’s personal experiences, establishing a continuous narrative with his best-known Chicano-period works, such as Brownies of the Southwest.

Artificial intelligence and identity: the rise of the statistical individual

AbstractAlgorithms are used across a wide range of societal sectors such as banking, administration, and healthcare to make predictions that impact on our lives. While the predictions can be incredibly accurate about our present and future behavior, there is an important question about how these algorithms in fact represent human identity. In this paper, we explore this question and argue that machine learning algorithms represent human identity in terms of what we shall call the statistical individual. This statisticalized representation of individuals, we shall argue, differs significantly from our ordinary conception of human identity, which is tightly intertwined with considerations about biological, psychological, and narrative continuity—as witnessed by our most well-established philosophical views on personal identity. Indeed, algorithmic representations of individuals give no special attention to biological, psychological, and narrative continuity and instead rely on predictive properties that significantly exceed and diverge from those that we would ordinarily take to be relevant for questions about how we are.

Neural correlates of audiovisual narrative speech perception in children and adults on the autism spectrum: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Autistic individuals show substantially reduced benefit from observing visual articulations during audiovisual speech perception, a multisensory integration deficit that is particularly relevant to social communication. This has mostly been studied using simple syllabic or word-level stimuli and it remains unclear how altered lower-level multisensory integration translates to the processing of more complex natural multisensory stimulus environments in autism. Here, functional neuroimaging was used to examine neural correlates of audiovisual gain (AV-gain) in 41 autistic individuals to those of 41 age-matched non-autistic controls when presented with a complex audiovisual narrative. Participants were presented with continuous narration of a story in auditory-alone, visual-alone, and both synchronous and asynchronous audiovisual speech conditions. We hypothesized that previously identified differences in audiovisual speech processing in autism would be characterized by activation differences in brain regions well known to be associated with audiovisual enhancement in neurotypicals. However, our results did not provide evidence for altered processing of auditory alone, visual alone, audiovisual conditions or AV- gain in regions associated with the respective task when comparing activation patterns between groups. Instead, we found that autistic individuals responded with higher activations in mostly frontal regions where the activation to the experimental conditions was below baseline (de-activations) in the control group. These frontal effects were observed in both unisensory and audiovisual conditions, suggesting that these altered activations were not specific to multisensory processing but reflective of more general mechanisms such as an altered disengagement of Default Mode Network processes during the observation of the language stimulus across conditions.

Erecting the submerged tree trunk

ABSTRACT This article discusses the efforts of constructing the narrative of continuity that connects the Indonesian province of Riau Islands with the former Malay kingdoms, Riau-Lingga-Johor-Pahang, and supports the claims to be the heir of the originator of Malay civilisation. Focusing on the case of the revived mak yong theatre, I look at the roles of speeches, writings, stage performances, historic sites, and museum displays that serve as the very fabric of the narrative construction called traditionalisation. I argue that traditionalisation aims to authenticate mak yong as an iconic and official representation of Malay inheritance, with impact on its presentation today, justifying the claim and locating the Riau Islands in a prestigious position in the cultural configurations in Indonesia and the Malay world.

Narrative Continuity and Natural Collective: Minimalism in Winter Recipes from the Collective

Narrative Continuity and Natural Collective: Minimalism in Winter Recipes from the Collective

(UN)DOING HISTORY: A CASE FOR EPISTEMOLOGICAL ALTERITY

ABSTRACTThis article addresses two primary tensions that currently beset medieval history. The first concerns a contentious debate within the field regarding the relative merits of two interpretative approaches: that which seeks to situate the Middle Ages within a narrative of continuity wherein aspects of the medieval bear some relationship of familiarity with the present and that which accords a radical alterity to the past that instigates moments of historical rupture. The second tension concerns the fraught relationship between history as a site of knowledge production with some proximity to engaging and producing truth and history as constructed, wherein its purported object of study, the past, is not an ontological fact but a cultural artifact. In this instance, what we witness is less a debate among scholars within history than an amorphic anxiety about history. This article makes a case for engaging the radical alterity that confronts the historian of the Middle Ages. It does so, however, cognizant of an ontological impasse: if alterity is attentive to difference, a difference that resists translation into modern knowledge regimes, then what does it mean to engage it historically—that is, through a temporal structure that would have been foreign to the very period of study?

Kleomenes I of Sparta: A Proto-Biography

Claims that Herodotus reveals himself as a proto-biographer are not yet widely accepted. To advance this claim, I review his recount of Kleomenes of Sparta (c. 540–c. 490), who finds his kingdom caught in the periphery of the Greco-Persian conflict, and whose activities over a thirty-year reign are recorded in the Histories. It is to Heraclitus to whom we attribute the maxim—character is human destiny. It is the truth of this maxim—which implies effective human agency—that makes Herodotus’ creation of historical narrative possible. He is often read for his off-topic vignettes, which color-in the character of the individuals depicted without necessarily advancing his narrative. But by leapfrogging through five of the nine books of the Histories, we can assemble a largely continuous narrative for this remarkable Spartan ruler. This narrative permits us to attribute both credit and moral responsibility for his actions. Arguably, this implied causation demonstrates that Herodotus’ writings include much that amounts to proto-biography.

«Сумма мудрости» Фэн Мэнлуна как источник исследования китайской стратагемной мысли

Studies of Chinese stratagem thinking in Russia still do not take into account works created in line with the Confucian philosophical tradition. “A Complete Book of Wisdom” by Feng Menglong (1574–1646) can be regarded as a collection of stratagems. The grounds for this assessment may be found in traditional bibliographic descriptions and the modern research and publishing tradition. The fi rst edition was published in 1626, the supplemented edition – in 1634. Formally, “A Complete Book of Wisdom” can be referred to encyclopediasleishu. The text is not a continuous narrative, but consists of individual short stories; the number depends on the edition, from 1061 to 1236. Each story describes a precedent for the application of a stratagem. The period of the narration covers years from ancient times to the Ming Dynasty. Feng Menglong selected proper stories, edited them, and added his own comments. Typologically, similar stories are organized into separate sections (28 in total), which, in turn, are organized into chapters (10 in total). One chapter contains from two to four sections. “A Complete Book of Wisdom” retains the features of the “A New Account of Tales of the World” by Liu Yiqing (403–444), which are characterized by a value classifi cation of people’s deeds. All the stories are arranged according to the principle of “from the best to the worst”. Feng Menglong wrote a large preface to the entire work, and provided extended prefaces to each chapter. Each section is preceded by a brief explanation. Feng Manlong’s own ideological views can be discovered as the paratextual elements: prefaces and commentaries. The article consists of two parts. The fi rst part is devoted to the description of the peculiarities of the narrative language of “A Complete Book of Wisdom”, as well as the analysis of the socio-philosophical issues that stimulated the creation of this work. On the basis of quotation from classics in Feng Menglong’s works two types of author’s meaning formation are revealed. The author of the paper shows transformation of ethical models of Sung neo-Confucianism and the changing status of the category ‘wisdom’ in Feng Menglong’s ideological program. The second part of the article offers the author’s commented translation of Feng Menglong’s general preface to “A Complete Book of Wisdom” and ten prefaces to each chapter.

Le temps fragmenté et la cohérence textuelle chez J. M. G. Le Clézio: l’exemple de Révolutions et de Ritournelle de la faim

Le Clézio reconfigures literary space through his ability to reconfigure time. In Révolutions and Ritournelle de la faim there is no longer a linearity of the text, because the games that Le Clézio makes with the verb tenses maintain a fragmented writing. However, the alternation of the stories and, implicitly, of the verb tenses does not cause cracks in the coherence and cohesion of the text, as the interruption of the linearity of time and of the narrative continuity participates in the dialogic structure of the two novels and in the plurality of points of view. Several temporalities coexist, overlap, follow each other, they are juxtaposed.

Manipulation of Time Continuity in Shared Narratives. On the Construction of Collective “Truths” and Its Ambivalent Function in the Social World and in Education

This article discusses the topic of politically motivated manipulation of time continuity in shared narratives. It examines the consequences of the irrational fusion of fragments of the stories of different protagonists who live in different historical periods, sometimes separated by centuries. The integration of bits and pieces of the myths borrowed from the past into the narratives of the present can take on psychotic proportions. It can seriously damage the living tissue of personal and collective memory. The story of the past, told in a certain way, can influence the self-perception of people, making them feel partly like heroes with a special mission, as well as victims, threatened by a hostile world, isolated, acting in response to the past, and therefore out of touch with reality. The result is the impossibility of distinguishing current events as a set of specific political and psychological forces that require a specific response to an urgent situation (Kalinowska, 2012). Current threats are thus perceived not only in their specificity, but in constant vigilance in the light of past traumas and illogical linking of the past, present, and future. The goal of this article is the understanding of this process with the help of Vamik Volkan’s psychoanalytic concept of “time collapse” (Volkan & Javakhishvili, 2022), and Michael Rothberg’s theory of the “implicated subject” (2019). When we talk about the transition to democracy and solidarity in education, we must understand the way of thinking that deviates from them.

A computational analysis of Telegram's narrative affordances.

This paper offers an empirical investigation of the narrative profiles afforded by public, one-way messaging channels on Telegram. We define these narrative profiles in terms of the contribution of messages to a thread of narrative continuity, and test the double hypothesis that 1) Telegram channels afford diverse narrative profiles, corresponding with distinct vernacular uses of the platform's features, and that 2) networks of Telegram channels sampled from thematically distinct seed channels lean towards distinct profiles. To this end, we analyse the textual contents of 2,724,187 messages from 492 public messaging channels spanning five thematic networks. Our computational method builds up the narrative profiles by scrolling down channels and classifying each message according to its narrative fit with the surrounding messages. We thus find that Telegram channels afford several distinct storytelling profiles, which tend to defy traditional notions of narrative coherence. We furthermore observe correspondences between the thematic orientations of channels and their narrative profiles, with a preference for disparate profiles in channels pertaining to conspiracy theories and far-right counterculture, a preference for coherent profiles in channels pertaining to cryptocurrencies, and mixed types in channels pertaining to disinformation about the war in Ukraine. These empirical observations thus inform our further theorization on how platform features allow users to construct and shape narratives online.

Aural and written language elicit the same processes: Further evidence from the missing-phoneme effect.

When readers are asked to detect a target letter while reading for comprehension, they miss it more frequently when it is embedded in a frequent function word than in a less frequent content word. This missing-letter effect has been used to investigate the cognitive processes involved in reading. A similar effect, called the missing-phoneme effect has been found in aural language when participants listen to the narration of a text while searching for a target phoneme. In three experiments, we tested the hypothesis that both effects derived from the same cognitive processes, by isolating the role of word frequency and word function. In Experiment 1, we used a paper and pencil procedure for reading and a continuous narration for the listening task. In Experiments 2 and 3, we used a rapid serial visual or auditory presentation procedure to control for the effects of preprocessing upcoming information: parafoveal processing in reading and coarticulation in aural language processing. Parallel findings were observed in the reading and listening tasks. In all experiments, there was an effect of word function, and there was an effect of word frequency in Experiments 1 and 3. Results are interpreted in light of the attentional disengagement model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Damsels, monsters, and superheroes: Exploring the metanarrative of sex trafficking

Sex trafficking narratives tend to follow the same storyline: a young, female victim is lured into sexual slavery by a foreign offender, and in the end, she is rescued by a Western hero. This article examines the sex trafficking narrative, and its accompanying characters in popular media, with a specific focus on the victim. It combines sex trafficking research with theories about folk tales and concepts of purity and the sacred. Empirically, the article explores the narratives of sex trafficking in six internationally influential films and books. The analysis creates an understanding of why one particular victim, and one metanarrative of sex trafficking, continue to dominate contemporary popular media. It traces the moralistic narrative continuities of sex trafficking, and creates an understanding of why we keep repeating this particular narrative, and why we seem to need it.

The Impact of Loneliness on the Growth of Romantic Intimacy in Alice Munro’s Story "Queenie": A Sociological Study

This study examines Alice Munro's short story "Queenie", and how the female characters cope with grief and solitude. The study come across that the female protagonist of the short narrative felt lonely and unhappy throughout. The Study finds out that other works ascribed to the same author have common narrative elements. The story structures show how the protagonist's emotions of loneliness lead to her ultimate satisfaction. This Paper employs a structuralist technique, focusing on Tzvetan Todorov's Narratology theory. The story's analysis reveals a continuous narrative structure in which the protagonist's emotions of loneliness are turned into the realisation of her ambitions and objectives. The answers of the author found to her own queries on loneliness highlight how widespread the feeling is and how many different factors might contribute to it. The characters' sense of alienation is supposed to drive them to make good life changes. Although the characters' sentiments of solitude take many forms, the reader nonetheless feels its pain via the author's words. Subtly, via the phrases she inserts into the narrative, she demonstrates that being alone may lead to happiness, if the heroes do not give up and are not afraid to take action to alter their lives..

Miltiades the Elder and the Younger: Two Early Biographies

Claims that Herodotus reveals himself as a proto-biographer are not yet widely accepted. To advance this claim, I have selected two men, Miltiades the Elder and his nephew, Miltiades the Younger whose activities are recounted in the Histories. It is the latter, one of only a few Athenians with any battle experience, who taking refuge back in Athens, finds himself in a leadership role during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It is to a near contemporary to whom we attribute the maxim—character is human destiny. It is the truth of this maxim—which implies effective human agency—that makes Herodotus’ creation of historical narrative possible. He is often read for his off-topic vignettes, which color-in the character of the individuals depicted without necessarily advancing his narrative. But by leap frogging through two of the nine books of the Histories, we can assemble a largely continuous narrative for these two remarkable individuals. This narrative permits us to attribute both credit and moral responsibility for their actions. Arguably, this implied causation demonstrates that Herodotus’ writings include much that amounts to proto-biography.

Sunu Coosan: Creating “our tradition” in Senegalese wrestling songs

AbstractThis article explores the term “sunu coosan” as a Senegalese trope of self‐articulation and as a semiotic strategy in contemporary discourses surrounding nationhood. The term, meaning "our tradition" in Wolof, is used by professionals as well as lay people in their promotion of the national sport, Làmb wrestling. By examining this phrase within the broad repertoire of Senegalese wrestling songs, I show that the musical commentary performed in the sport of Làmb situates it within a narrative of traditional continuity, subsequently producing a modern tradition for the consumption of the Senegalese nation. I argue that this collection of songs is a performative embodiment of a modern state's struggle to form its national identity. In Senegal's national wrestling arenas, ongoing lyrical engagement with the themes of history, heritage, and morality in genre‐specific, stylized formats, makes these songs the site of both ‘traditional discourse’ and a ‘discourse about tradition’. In this article, I explore three central features of Làmb songs: the use of poetic personas; "out of time narration"; and the recitation of praise poetry. By implementing these stylistic techniques inside and outside of the arena, local musicians continually create a meta‐discourse about the meaning of tradition.

Education, Ontological Security, and Preserving Hope in Liminality: Learning from the Daily Strategies Exercised by Syrian Refugee Youth in Jordan

Abstract This article draws on a study with Syrian refugee youth and their teachers to examine how young people, holding liminal social and legal statuses in Jordan, manage uncertainty. Through an analysis of students' experiences, this article describes the varying strategies that they developed to protect their sense of hope across time by maintaining ontological security, or an understanding of self. These findings suggested that refugee youth, unable to navigate uncertainty through their educational spaces, explored alternative ways to actively build hope and sustain a sense of control in their lives. They nurtured hope by constructing a continuous narrative of their experiences, exploring their skills and potential, and forming attachments to ideas of place and possibility. Buildings on these findings, this article argues for the importance of integrating practices within education which respond to refugee youths’ needs to maintain ontological security and hope in the face of uncertainty.