Conversion Narratives Research Articles

Narratives 2.0

Based on a corpus of voice message narratives in German WhatsApp group chats, the present study contributes to research on social media storytelling in that it focusses on stories of personal experience which are embedded in a communication platform which favours a continuous dialogic exchange, narrated to well-defined non-anonymous publics and multimodal (comprised of visual and audible posting types). To capture the characteristics of this type of social media storytelling, the paper argues that Ochs and Capps’ (2001) dimensional model originally developed for conversational narratives (including the dimensions of tellability, tellership, embeddedness, linearity, moral stance) should be expanded by the dimensions of publicness, multimodality and sequencing. The prototype of storytelling in WhatsApp group chats is based on recent personal experiences; it is related by a single teller as an initial, sequentially non-embedded and linearly organised “big package” story (in a single voice message sometimes introduced by a text message containing an abstract); other group members routinely document their evaluative stances in rather conventionalised text message responses in the semi-public group space.

Romanticizing Conversion Narratives: Women, Change, and Female Agency inTwilightandJoseph and Aseneth

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series recounts the conversion of the female protagonist, Bella, from human to vampire. This conversion is reminiscent of an earlier tale of conversion in the Second Temple apocryphal account Joseph and Aseneth. This article argues that both works can be understood as romanticized conversion narratives that are differentiated by the degree to which they endow their female protagonists with agency and autonomy. While both tales include common elements (for example, a similar narrative arc and gendered elements of the conversion process), there is a notable difference in the level of the woman’s agency during her conversion.

Recipe of Life: A Relational Narrative Approach in Therapy With Persons Living With Chronic Pain

Objective: This study aims to describe the effectiveness of applying an overarching narrative metaphor, the “spiritual seasoning of life,” among 30 older adults diagnosed with chronic pain in Hong Kong. Method: Using a qualitative inquiry approach, interviews of participants from group-based narrative therapy (NT) interventions were conducted. Thematic analysis was performed on their responses to during group sessions. Results: The practice was effective in helping the participants to (1) deconstruct their problem-saturated stories; (2) unearth their inner strengths, core values, and perceived knowledge; (3) co-construct their preferred life stories and identities; and (4) document how these participants reclaimed their meaning of life after living with chronic pain. Conclusion: Narrative conversations using such metaphors are useful to reconnect them with different relationships, their significant others, and the society as a whole and have practical implications for promoting the quality of life of people living with chronic pain in the context of recovery.

Chatbots em campanhas de sensibilização: narrativa conversacional e possibilidades interativas O caso do bot Fabi para Unicef-Brasil e Facebook

Nesse artigo, analisamos o dispositivo conversacional proposto no âmbito da campanha de sensibilização sobre segurança online e vazamento de imagens íntimas da Unicef-Brasil e do Facebook, no qual internautas podem interagir com um chatbot chamado Fabi. A partir de uma abordagem pragmática da comunicação, nós estudamos as características da narrativa supostamente baseada em experiências pessoais contada pelo bot e ainda os aspectos interativos, levando em conta os princípios de circularidade e de equifinalidade associados às interações humanas (WATZLAWICK et al., 1992). Nosso objetivo é de analisar a utilização de chatbots para a construção de uma “narrativa conversacional” com propósito persuasivo.

The Conversion of Pachomius Revisited

Abstract The article seeks to reassess and contextualise the conversion narrative of the Egyptian monk Pachomius, the founder of coenobitic monasticism. It thereby offers a case study into how and why the Pachomian literary tradition was shaped, altered and abridged, while also challenging the traditional views associated with Pachomius’ military career.

Converting to Privatization: A Discourse Analysis of Dyslexia Policy Narratives

In this study, I analyze written testimony submitted to the state legislature regarding Connecticut’s 2014 Act Concerning Dyslexia and Special Education (PA-14-39), in order to engage with the discourse and rhetoric occasioned by the policy-making process and investigate the phenomenon of dyslexia in contemporary education policy. Drawing on critical discursive psychology, positioning theory, and narrative policy analysis, I examine how dyslexia advocacy discourse forms a cohesive, compelling policy narrative. I argue that this narrative can be understood as a conversion narrative, which drives a privatization agenda in which public schools become mandated consumers for a growing dyslexia industry, and in which the nature of instruction for students with reading difficulties is narrowly prescribed.

Empowering care in the inner-city: meeting standards with high expectations

ABSTRACT This paper provides a narrative account describing how a first-year teacher’s empowering care in her mathematics classes in an inner-city high school in Southern California contributed to better student learning and helped raise district-wide test scores. The purpose of the article, chronicled from a practitioner’s point of view, examines how teacher beliefs that “all students are capable of learning,” operationalised concretely in terms of empowering care, enabled students to achieve impressive academic performances as measured by the district standardised tests during the recent school year. Through applying the research methodologies of narrative inquiry and conversation analysis to interpret the data, this study focuses on how students from impoverished, urban neighbourhoods started to believe in themselves. As a result, these students demonstrated that they could improve their learning in Algebra I and consistently perform better on district tests, outperforming other classes at their school and other schools within the district.

“Go Home, Purūravas”: Heterodox Rhetoric of a Late Rigvedic Dialogue Hymn

ABSTRACT This essay attempts to de-link the study of the Rigveda from both colonial philology and ongoing Hindu nationalist projects. It brings the rhetoric of form, especially as theorized by Kenneth Burke, to open up space for critics and commentators with a broader range of relationships to Brahmanical liturgy. To further the goal of delinking, it first narrows the scope of analysis to dialogue hymns, which are reminiscent of debates found within Buddhist conversion narratives rendered in versified Sanskrit. It then centers formal linguistic figures that these two layers of Sanskrit poetry have in common. Finally, conceptualizing these formal devices, it uses analytic categories from a South Asian critical tradition (alaṃkāraśāstra). Framed and constrained in this manner and applied to the (ex-)lovers’ quarrel of Purūravas and Urvaśī (in R.V. 10.95), a Burkean analysis reveals an exchange that both satisfies the “appetites” and allays the concerns of conservative audiences, who otherwise might fear that their wives could follow Urvaśī’s example and happily part with their wedded partners-in-sacrifice.

“Go Home, Purūravas”: Heterodox Rhetoric of a Late Rigvedic Dialogue Hymn

ABSTRACTThis essay attempts to de-link the study of the Rigveda from both colonial philology and ongoing Hindu nationalist projects. It brings the rhetoric of form, especially as theorized by Kenneth Burke, to open up space for critics and commentators with a broader range of relationships to Brahmanical liturgy. To further the goal of delinking, it first narrows the scope of analysis to dialogue hymns, which are reminiscent of debates found within Buddhist conversion narratives rendered in versified Sanskrit. It then centers formal linguistic figures that these two layers of Sanskrit poetry have in common. Finally, conceptualizing these formal devices, it uses analytic categories from a South Asian critical tradition (alaṃkāraśāstra). Framed and constrained in this manner and applied to the (ex-)lovers’ quarrel of Purūravas and Urvaśī (in R.V. 10.95), a Burkean analysis reveals an exchange that both satisfies the “appetites” and allays the concerns of conservative audiences, who otherwise might fear that their wives could follow Urvaśī’s example and happily part with their wedded partners-in-sacrifice.

Metalepsis in Autobiographical Narrative

How do fictional tactics operate in what is often simplistically termed the “factual” or referential world of autobiographical discourse? Many narratologists view the rhetorical figure of metalepsis as distinctive to metafictional texts and constitutive of “fictional” narration, which they posit in antithesis to “factual” narration. But regarding autobiographical narrative only within the realm of fact ignores its complexity. While some theorists of autobiographical narrative have read it through the rhetorical figure of prosopopeia, as elaborated by Paul de Man in characterizing its “de-facement” of subjectivity, we argue that the figure of metalepsis operates productively in autobiographical narrative, particularly hybrid and experimental texts. The use of metalepsis shifts levels or layers of narration across temporal and spatial planes in ways that confuse its diegetic and metadiegetic levels. That is, autobiographical narrative, while filtered through the récit factuel, is not consistently fixed in an extratextual, ontologically unified, referential world. We pursue this argument by exploring four cases: the circuit of transfer in incomplete conversion narrative (Rowlandson’s A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson); palimsistic seepage between the Bildungsroman and trauma narrative (Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius); narrative collision of “parallel universes” (Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted); and unstable witness to collective trauma by a second-generation narrator (Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale). Recent critical studies of metalepsis also probe how it presses at the limits of referentiality in life narratives by J. M. Coetzee, Javier Marías, and Christine Brooke-Rose. In sum, autobiographical narrative is by no means a referential, “monologic” mode easily differentiated from the dialogism and metadiscursivity of the novel; rather, it is a mode unsettled by figural, discursive, and temporal boundary-crossing.

“A Little More Jewish, Please”: Black and Jewish Secularity and Invisibility in Fran Ross’s Oreo

ABSTRACT This article argues for the consideration of Fran Ross’s novel Oreo (1974) within a Jewish American literary tradition given its articulation of black and secular Jewish identity, its recasting of more conventional “shiksa”-oriented exogamy narratives, and its frank depiction of the pressures exerted by white Jewish racism on Jews of color, both in familial and broader societal contexts. The article frames the novel as responding to broad thematic tendencies in prior depictions of simultaneously black and Jewish subjects in American Jewish fiction and journalism, which tended to consider Jews of color as novelties or frauds. The close reading also features a juxtaposition of Oreo’s use of a mezuzah as commenting on gendered aspects of Sammy Davis Jr.’s conversion narrative within his memoir Yes I Can. The article considers anthropological scholarship on nonwhite Jewish identity, analyzing Ross’s literary depiction of the black and Jewish and female body alongside accounts which comment on problematic associations of nonwhite Jewishness with “impossibility.”

College Student Preferences for Substance Use Disorder Educational Videos: A Qualitative Study

Background: College student preferences regarding substance use disorder (SUD) education and treatment-related education have been understudied, despite this population's relatively high risk of developing SUDs and low help-seeking rates. We sought to identify students' preferences regarding content, style, and format of educational online videos about SUDs and SUD treatment. Method: We held six, two-hour long focus groups with college student participants from Indiana University from 2017 to 2018 during which participants were shown drafts of scripts, mock-up images, and animation and then asked open-ended questions about their preferences and suggested changes. Focus groups were audio recorded and transcribed. Researchers then undertook thematic analysis of focus groups: independently coding transcripts for data related to the research questions, conducting consensus coding, and then analyzing coded data for themes. Results: 39 students participated in focus groups, approximately half of whom were undergraduate students and the other half were graduate students. They preferred animated video characters that were relatable to college students but abstract enough to represent a range of students, such as stick figures with backpacks. They preferred conversational narration with subtle humor and references to realistic reasons for college students using drugs or alcohol. Participants encouraged inclusion of information about SUD impacts on school, work, and relationships, in addition to physical health. Participants opposed any content or style that could be interpreted as fear-mongering. They requested more information regarding medication-assisted treatment efficacy and less information about side effects. Conclusion: College students have unique cultural needs, necessitating tailored educational interventions about SUD and SUD treatments.

The historical present in Spanish and semantic/pragmatic structure

AbstractThe historical present (HP) is the use of the present tense to refer to past events, usually as part of a narrative. Most work on this topic has dealt with the functions of English HP, mainly within the context of tense switching in conversational narrative. Relatively little work focuses exclusively on HP in Spanish, and most of it deals with the function of HP in conversational narratives. There is a gap in the literature regarding the specific interaction between the semantics and pragmatics involved in the use of HP, especially with respect to the formal representation of this interaction. In order to fill this gap, this paper analyzes the use of HP within the Parallel Architecture framework (Jackendoff 2002) and examines the implications for the semantic/pragmatic structure. Language samples produced by native speakers of Spanish and data from a large Spanish corpus are used as part of the basis for analysis. The present study also explores how the use of the preterite and imperfect in narrative in the past parallels the use of the simple present and the present progressive in narrative within the present timeframe, and shows how this can also be fruitfully analyzed employing the Parallel Architecture. The result is an original model that extends the formal apparatus of the Parallel Architecture to an area where it has not been applied before, the interface between semantics and narrative structure.

Comment

This article is related to:Ron Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational NarrativeThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryIn Conversation with Ron GreleQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyIn Conversation with Ron GreleRon Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational Narrative

Ron Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational Narrative

This article is related to:CommentThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryIn Conversation with Ron GreleQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsCommentGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyIn Conversation with Ron Grele

Ronald J. Grele: Selected Bibliography

This article is related to:Ron Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational NarrativeCommentThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryIn Conversation with Ron GreleQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsCommentGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActIn Conversation with Ron GreleRon Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational Narrative

Questioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political Act

This article is related to:Ron Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational NarrativeCommentThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryIn Conversation with Ron GreleRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsCommentGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyIn Conversation with Ron GreleRon Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational Narrative

Ronald J. Grele: History, Politics, and Stories

This article is related to:Ron Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational NarrativeCommentThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryIn Conversation with Ron GreleQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyThe Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s ConversationsCommentGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyIn Conversation with Ron GreleRon Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational Narrative

The Poetics and Politics of Ron Grele’s Conversations

This article is related to:Ron Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational NarrativeCommentRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryIn Conversation with Ron GreleQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyCommentGuest Editors’ Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral HistoryRonald J. Grele: History, Politics, and StoriesQuestioning Historians: Oral History as a Historiographic and Political ActRonald J. Grele: Selected BibliographyIn Conversation with Ron GreleRon Grele’s Lifelong Passion for Conversational Narrative

The dialects of control and connection in the study abroad homestay

AbstractAs in every conversation, negotiation for control and connection is at the heart of communication in the study abroad homestay. Finding a comfortable footing on the control-and-connection continua (i.e., closeness versus distance, and hierarchy versus equality) is both a product and a process of language learning in the homestay. Drawing on interviews of all parties and recordings of homestay interactions, we present the dialectical interplay of control and connection through analysis of conversational narratives recounted at Chinese homestay dinner tables. We recruitWertsch’s (1998)notion of mediated action to show how stories, as cultural tools, were employed by the hosts and students to construct moral injunctions and to cultivate closeness through mutual caring (guānxīn), affective gratification (qièyì), and attentiveness (tiēxīn). Findings of the study challenge assumptions about homestay communication as a power struggle only and underscore the importance of teaching students to appreciate the value of interpersonal exchange in homestay settings.