Narrative Development Research Articles

Darwin’s closet: the queer sides of The descent of man (1871)

Abstract Charles Darwin’s published and unpublished writings contain a plethora of references to sex variations, including intersexualities (‘hermaphroditism’), transformations of sex and non-heteronormative sexual behaviours. Marking the 150th anniversary of his major sexological work The descent of man, this historical review examines a range of strategies that Darwin deployed in order to accommodate such variations within his evolutionism, while simultaneously attempting to mitigate the potential for condoning sexual phenomena that were feared and reviled in Victorian bourgeois society. Although he moved to cast sex-variant animals, human and non-human, as biological misfits and failures, Darwin’s commitment to the principle of primordial intersexuality (dual-sexed origins) nonetheless occasioned some of the queerest evolutionary narratives of the 19th century. Similarly, his construal of the ‘unnatural crimes’ of indigenous peoples was contained within a hierarchical narrative of the backwardness of ‘savages’ and civilizational supremacy but was readily subject to challenge and queer reinterpretations, not least with reference to the ‘extreme sensuality’ of the classical Greeks. Despite working to subdue the queer potentialities of his evolutionism, Darwin nonetheless laid the foundations for a new, modernist sexology to emerge, a situation that was exploited by a cohort of Darwinist sexologists, Sigmund Freud chief among them, who followed in his path.

New maps for an inclusive Wikipedia: decolonial scholarship and strategies to counter systemic bias

ABSTRACT Since early in the development of the project, Wikipedia editors have been concerned with overcoming “systemic biases” in coverage of the world’s knowledge, especially those rooted in forms of social marginalisation. Major campaigns within the Wikipedia community attempt to reverse these disparities, largely by focusing on addressing “gaps” in the demographics of Wikipedia editors and by writing new articles about people and topics overlooked by the encyclopedia. However, many Wikipedia editors and observers have argued that the systemic biases of Wikipedia are inherent to current global distribution of knowledge production, and can only be overcome by changing the encyclopedia’s standards of inclusion. This article reframes this debate by comparing the project of “countering systemic bias” on Wikipedia with the effort within Western/Northern academia to decolonise and diversify scholarship. Since this project began at least fifty years ago, it has led to abundant peer-reviewed scholarship, all of which qualifies as “reliable sources” for Wikipedia articles. Anthropological scholarship has also overturned the social evolutionary narrative that often shapes popular perceptions of global history. The article proposes that critical scholarship, historical maps, and maps in contemporary scholarship can all contribute to addressing Wikipedia’s systemic biases.

Developing achievable alternate futures for key challenges during the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

The oceans face a range of complex challenges for which the impacts on society are highly uncertain but mostly negative. Tackling these challenges is testing society’s capacity to mobilise transformative action, engendering a sense of powerlessness. Envisaging positive but realistic visions of the future, and considering how current knowledge, resources, and technology could be used to achieve these futures, may lead to greater action to achieve sustainable transformations. Future Seas (www.FutureSeas2030.org) brought together researchers across career stages, Indigenous Peoples and environmental managers to develop scenarios for 12 challenges facing the oceans, leveraging interdisciplinary knowledge to improve society’s capacity to purposefully shape the direction of marine social-ecological systems over the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030). We describe and reflect on Future Seas, providing guidance for co-developing scenarios in interdisciplinary teams tasked with exploring ocean futures. We detail the narrative development for two futures: our current trajectory based on published evidence, and a more sustainable future, consistent with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which is technically achievable using existing and emerging knowledge. Presentation of Business-as-usual and More Sustainable futures—together—allows communication of both trajectories, whilst also highlighting achievable, sustainable versions of the future. The advantages of the interdisciplinary approach taken include: (1) integrating different perspectives on solutions, (2) capacity to explore interactions between Life Under Water (Goal 14) and other SDGs, and (3) cross-disciplinary learning. This approach allowed participants to conceptualise shared visions of the future and co-design transformative pathways to achieving those futures.Supplementary Information (SI)The online version contains supplementary material available at (10.1007/s11160-020-09629-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A Wirral Location for the Battle of Brunanburh

There has been significant local publicity in the North-West relating to the search for the site of the Battle of Brunanburh.1 The purpose of this article is not to review recent metal detector findings, but to explore why the Wirral would have made strategic sense as the location for the conflict.2 To contextualise the discussion, brief consideration is given to the historical events surrounding the battle, the development of narratives about the conflict (including the claim that it took place near the River Humber), and the place-name evidence. It should be noted that many different locations have been put forward for the battle site, and no doubt arguments for alternative locations will continue. However, consideration of geographical factors as well as linguistic and historical evidence make a strong case that this conflict took place in the Wirral and in the vicinity of present-day Bromborough.

НЛО НАД ПЛАНЕТАРИЕМ:ЭПИСТЕМОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ ПРОПАГАНДА И АЛЬТЕРНАТИВНЫЕ ФОРМЫ ЗНАНИЙО КОСМОСЕ В СССР В 1940–1960-Е ГОДЫ

The article examines the origins and development of narratives about historical and present-day contacts with al-ien civilizations (ufology) in the USSR after World War II. The current research literature usually interprets ufology as a form of quasi-religious and mythological thinking, yet my study of the genealogy of Soviet ufology demon-strates that the development of alternative knowledge about the outer space was a by-product of the state-sponsored propaganda of scientific knowledge. This relationship suggests that the common understanding of the public com-munication of science as a mere tool for the transfer of knowledge from experts (scholars) to the public is simplistic and misleading. By bringing together science popularizers and broad audiences in a communication chain, the postWWII Soviet mass scientific literacy campaign required the former to mater new narrative forms to appeal to the latter. The narrativization of science for its public communication means that popular science genres exist in a rhetor-ical and literary context, rather than belonging to the domain of the production and verification of scientific knowledge. This makes stories and their structural elements (plot development, internal conflict, and the hierarchy of characters) a key aspect of science communication. Consequently, a history of ufology in the post-World War II USSR serves as an illustrative case revealing how the epistemological polyphony and diversity emerged in late Sovi-et society

КОНЦЕПТ БІЖЕНЕЦЬ У ДИСКУРСАХ НОВИХ МЕДІА УГОРЩИНИ: «ФОРМУВАННЯ ЄДИНОГО ГОЛОСУ»

The article is devoted to the study of the concept REFUGEE / MENEKÜLT in the discourse of new media of Hungary in 2015, marked by the migration crisis in Europe. Based on the results of content analysis with the use of the “Big Data” technology, a discourse-forming role of the concept REFUGEE / MENEKÜLT has been proven in relation to the ratio of government and public positions. Hungary has formed a strategy of a “single voice” of official media and social networks which systematically implement the strategic narrative “Refugees are a threat to Hungary”(“Menekültek veszélyt jelentenek Magyarországnak”). Hungary's unified national communicative strategy of non-admittance of refugees and the corresponding discourse as a type of social behavior were laid down by national consultations (a referendum) and in V. Orbán's speeches. The narratives and thematic groups of linguistic markers of social networks regarding the concept REFUGEE / MENEKÜLT mostly coincide with the narratives and messages of the official media which relay the policy of the of Hungarian government of the day. The development of the strategic narrative is carried out according to the following structural blocks: abstract, climax, outcome, essessment, conclusion. The “single voice”policy on the issue of refugees was implemented in Hungary through various communicative channels with a focus on all target audiences.

Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text by Sarah McNamer

Reviewed by: Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text by Sarah McNamer Emma Louise Barlow McNamer, Sarah, Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text (The William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante and Medieval Italian Literature, 14), Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 2018; hardback; pp. clxxx, 264; R.R.P. US$65.00; ISBN 9780268102852. The William and Katherine Devers Series, founded in 1995, explores the works of Dante and his contemporaries as points of convergence for the interweaving lines of inquiry of the medieval Italian cultural tradition. As noted by Daragh O'Connell and Beatrice Sica ('Literary Cultures in/and Italian Studies', Italian Studies, 75 (2020), 125–39), recent scholarship in the field has shown an inclination to look beyond the canon in favour of examining potential alternative canons and 'minor' authors and texts, contributing to a reframing of cultural authority in the early Italian literary tradition. Given this trend, it is entirely clear why the series editors have invested in Sarah McNamer's book: while the unattributed Latin text of the Meditationes vitae Christi was highly influential during the medieval period, McNamer proposes a previously unstudied Italian text, allegedly authored by one of the Poor Clares of Tuscany, as the original text of the Meditations, thus complicating not only its textual history, but the history of medieval Italian literature more broadly. This book constitutes an exciting and compelling new perspective on a significant text. The preface to this volume states that it will present the Italian testo breve with an English translation and commentary, as well as a detailed exposé of the ramifications of the Italian text in terms of 'the development of prose narrative in the early Trecento; the role of women as writers and readers in the invention of genres and devotional practices; the part played by the Franciscans in the cultivation of affective piety; the rise and risks of vernacular theology; and the history of emotion' (p. xviii). The presentation of the text, translation, [End Page 243] and commentary is exemplary, and McNamer makes illuminating observations regarding the vital role of Franciscans and of women in medieval devotion, and the ways in which prose narrative developed in fourteenth-century Italy. However, the compact nature of the initial paratextual argument leaves the question of medieval vernacular theology and its relationship to affective states comparatively underdeveloped, and McNamer's frequent redirections to her contemporaneous article published in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum (111.1–2 (2018), 65–112) do not quite counterbalance this shortcoming. The book is presented in two main sections. The first 180 pages contain an introduction that presents the reasoning behind offering a critical edition of this testo breve, alongside a paratextual argument. There is a textual history that accounts for the newly 'discovered' (p. xxviii, n. 13) testo breve as well as the Italian and Latin texts already known to scholars, following a meticulous close reading of particular textual interpolations. The 'authorship' section posits an author of Franciscan affiliation and a woman, based on analysis of textual referents as well as contextual information regarding literacy and social practices, while the 'date and place of composition' section gives a detailed provenance of the testo breve, dated to c. 1300–1325 (p. cxx). This is followed by a catalogue of the manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian MS Canon. It. 174), a linguistic analysis by Pär Larson, which argues that the text is Tuscan but copied by Venetian copyists, and notes on editorial principles and quirks of the translation. The second section contains the 'critical edition' of the testo breve, divided into its thirty-one chapters. The facing-page English translation is sound and notes on the text prove highly useful in understanding the text's devotional uses and contexts. However, references to the author's close comparative reading of the text with one purportedly later Italian version (the testo minore, a longer text that most closely resembles the testo breve) is revealed only in snippets, rather than comprehensively. While McNamer acknowledges that producing a comparative critical edition is against the intention of the monograph (pp. xxxiii–xxxiv), some confusion remains regarding the accuracy of the term 'critical edition' in reference...

Covid-19 as a Generator of Pending Narratives: Developing an Empirical Tool to Analyze Narrative Practices in Constructing Futures

The article describes the basic elements of the pending narrative and develops them into a tool of qualitative analysis by taking examples from Covid-19-related reports, opinions and editorials in the news. The pending narrative is a powerful story form, persuading the responsible actors in public to take action by stirring up compelling passion for a specific goal. It has a cogency that comes from the threat that if we do not act in the right way now, the continuity of life will be jeopardized. Crises are fertile breeding grounds for pending narratives, and the arrival of the Covid-19 virus is an expressive example of a situation threatening the continuity of human life around the globe. These circumstances feed on the emergence of pending narratives, which translate the unknown, uncertain and frightening future from open, multiple and unpredictable trajectories into more closed, predictable and controllable pathways. In the development of the pending narrative into a tool of qualitative analysis, the article takes influences from narratology, Bamberg’s theory on positioning analysis, Greimas’ narrative semiotics and critical discourse analysis. It proposes that in the analysis of pending narratives we benefit from the separation of three levels. On the first level, pending narratives highlight disorder and the menacing trajectory of the anti-subject, and outline a qualifying trajectory for the subject to overcome the threat. On the second level they persuade the responsible actors and the audience to identify with the qualifying trajectory and to take action or support it. And on the third level they articulate the kind of values, identities and moral order in aid of which the required action is taken.

Part of the Narrative: Generic News Frames in the U.S. Recreational Marijuana Policy Subsystem

In the growing body of research on policy change and in the relatively new frontier of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), the components comprising narratives' structure are still under construction. One opportunity for additional research relates to examining the role of frames. This article examines generic news frames used to report on ballot initiatives legalizing recreational marijuana in three states and conceptually orients these frames within NPF. Using a mixed methods analysis, the findings suggest that in the emerging U.S. recreational marijuana legalization policy subsystem, setting helped explain reporters' use of certain generic frames. The findings provide support for the inclusion of generic frames as part of NPF's narrative theory, open up potential for new research designs, and further clarify media's role in the development of policy narratives. From a practical perspective, the analysis contributes insight into how media inform constituents about new marijuana laws.Related ArticlesCrow, Deserai A., Lydia A. Lawhon, John Berggren, Juhi Huda, Elizabeth Koebele, and Adrianne Kroepsch. 2017. “A Narrative Policy Framework Analysis of Wildfire Policy Discussions in two Colorado Communities.” Politics & Policy 45 (4): 626‐656. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12207Fisk, Jonathan M., Joseph A. Vonasek, and Elvis Davis. 2018. “‘Pot’reneurial Politics: The Budgetary Highs and Lows of Recreational Marijuana Policy Innovation.” Politics & Policy 46 (2): 189‐208. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12246O'Donovan, Kristin Taylor. 2018. “Does the Narrative Policy Framework Apply to Local Policy Issues?” Politics & Policy 46 (4): 532‐570. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12265

La poétique de la Ville de Georges Rodenbach

<p class="Standard">Georges Rodenbach is the author of works in prose and verses exploring the resonance of the signs received from the outside world on the individual subjectivity. His fictions, poems and essays look into the interactions between the characters and the city - generally Bruges - in which they evolve, charging the objective reality with symbols revealing their own intimate determinations. The real or symbolic influence of the City on narrative developments, expressed by a poetics of Analogy, is the topic of this study, which will attempt to bring out the overall coherence of Rodenbach’s works through the permanence of his “Poetics of the City”.</p>

Superdiversity: reconfiguration of cultural complexity of the contemporary contexts

Conceptualization of the social-cultural contexts of the 21st century in terms of superdiversity implies diversification of the current diversity due to the changing patterns of global migration and transnationalization. The concept of superdiversity introduced by S. Vertovec means a new way for describing and analyzing contemporary social and cultural processes. The author considers three interrelated aspects of superdiversity: descriptive, methodological and practical (political). As a rule, superdiversity implies new immigrants who move from a larger number of countries than before, including those that did not have colonial relations with the places attracting immigrants. The emerging contexts of superdiversity are not limited to the growth of diversity in terms of ethnicity - a multidimensional approach to superdiversity allows it to reflect patterns of social inequality, creolization and the experience of social contacts determined by diversification of migration channels and social statuses of immigrants, of their ethnic, gender and age characteristics. Under the permanent mobility, multiple identities and diverse transnational practices, not everything can be represented in terms of we-they, majority-minority, inside-outside. Therefore, superdiversity is not related to the Other or minorities but presents a new framework for all residents of the country, regardless of their origin. Moreover, in local contexts, cultural diversity is increasingly perceived as a norm. Thus, the concept of superdiversity contributes to the development of a new cultural narrative that would replace the outdated concepts of assimilation and multiculturalism.

Maasai perspectives on modernity: narratives of evolution, nature and culture

The narrative of evolutionist modernity is a former scientific theory which has fuelled and legitimized deeply harmful imperialist hierarchies, but increasingly influences how Maasai make sense of modernity. Borrowing from narratology and building on twelve years of intermittent ethnography in East-African Maasailand, I respond to recent calls for cognitive justice. Firstly, I contribute to insight in how Maasai, as Indigenous Southern people, conceptualize key scientific concepts such as modernity, as to further the availability of their understandings as partners in the dialogue of theory building. I especially regard continuities and shifts in their uses of nature/culture and Culture/culture dichotomies. Secondly, I disclose, question and deconstruct the continued centralization of Eurocentric narratives and modernist assumptions in academic sense-making, as this unreflexively denies the gradual difference and continued entanglements of scientific, ex-scientific and non-scientific narratives, and the need to include Southern experiences and knowledges to make science a truly global knowledge system.

The Representation Concept of Hell Punishment in Islamic Teachings in the comic Indahnya Taman Surga, Pedihnya Siksa Neraka

Indahnya Taman Surga Pedihnya Siksa Neraka, one of the religious comics present in Indonesia. This comic reaps the discourse of the debate because it is considered to present violence and pornography, on the other hand, this comic offers the teachings of life and cosmology according to Islam. This research seeks to find a representation of the concept of the torment of hell in the Islamic teachings present in the comic visual. Comparative studies were conducted between Islamic teachings through the interpretation of the Quran Hamka version, as well as the content of torture present in the visuals embodied in the comics. Interpretation brings the result that the comic provides narrative development by making variations, additions, simplifications, and reductions influenced by the comic's background without changing the main idea of the source. Comics show the comic's belief in Islamic teachings, including in interpreting his belief that there will be a hell of a version of himself.

Rethinking Nathaniel Hawthorne and Nature: Pastoral Experiments and Environmentality

Rethinking Nathaniel Hawthorne and Nature: Pastoral Experiments and Environmentality

Confronting Realities – First Steps Working on Cinematic Autosociobiographies

This paper provides a case study of the artistic research project Confronting Realities – First Steps. Working on Cinematic Autosociobiographies conducted at the Film Academy Vienna/ mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria as well as a reflection on the relationship between its research approaches, theory and criticism. Drawing from literary autosociobiographies of Ernaux (Les Années, 2008) and Éribon (Retour à Reims, 2009), the aim was to explore, describe and produce cinematic autosociobiographies - autobiographies in regard to and contextualized within the frame of social class and larger historical developments. Over the course of 10 months a multi-level project was designed and conducted to explore the format of cinematic autosociobiographies within the course “Research Project II” of MA and BA Students for Directing, Script Writing as well as Film and Media Studies. A group of 8 external performers from various backgrounds joined the project. The project was designed on four levels: Level (1) of Autosociobiographical Exploration that created three exploration groups with varying composition – 14 artist researchers/ film and acting students from Europe, refugee artists from Iran and Syria - to explore, make accessible and contextualize one’s sociobiography. Level (2) of Cinematic Forms and Techniques intended to develop narratives, cinematic techniques and formats of cinematic autosociobiographies - 2 short films were produced in that context that show the diversity of cinematic form and content on the levels of visuals, framing, audio, editing as well as in the narrative and the narrative development. Level (3) of Interdisciplinary and Theoretical Contextualization intended to build a strong interconnection between artistic, theoretical and interdisciplinary research about social class, cinematic forms and collaborative strategies of film production. Level (4) of Reflection and Evaluation intended to create a reflective framework, especially focusing on the collaborative aspect of filmmaking, ethical aspects of working with autosociobiographies and of researching/ creating in an intimate way in an academic environment. Cinematic autosociobiographies have shown to provide unique artistic research approaches and tools to convey collective movements, to find relations between different realities as well as creating ways of making them accessible. Further research is still needed and planned.

Navigating Reconceptualist and Feminist Ethics of Care Scholarship to Find a Conceptual Space for Rethinking Children’s Needs in Early Childhood Education

The aim of this article is to navigate through differing perspectives on the concept of children’s needs in early childhood education. Reconceptualist scholars critique the developmental narrative of the needy and dependent child. In contrast, feminist ethics of care scholars regard having needs and dependencies as ontologically what it means to be human. The article proposes a potential in-between space that recognizes that children have needs and dependencies, as do all entities. At the same time, this recognition is complicated through entangled ideas about subjectivity, needs interpretation, relationality, ethics, and politics.

Hvorfor fortælle dig noget, du allerede ved?

Why Tell You Something You Already Know?
 – On Second Person Narratives in Danish Literature
 
 In this article, I propose a typology that expands the empirical field of second person narratives to include any narrative, fictional as well as autobiographical, where the “you” is designated, but not addressed. Based on the proposed typology, I investigate the development of second person narratives throughout Danish literary history; from experimental to conventionalized second person narratives.

Fern von Aleppo: Narrative Themenentfaltung im interkulturellen Kontext

Abstract In “Fern von Aleppo”, the Syrian author Faisal Hamdo, who left his home in 2014 and sought refuge in Germany, tells of his very personal integration experiences. The book represents a kind of intercultural communication. In his book, Faisal Hamdo, who sees himself as a “mediator between the worlds”, tries to give the German reader answers to many questions regarding Syrian culture. From a text linguistic point of view, this book identifies the narrative development that seems to be tailored to the intercultural context. Accordingly, the present article raises the following questions: Does the structure of classic narration differ from the structure of narration in an intercultural context? Which intercultural information units are presented in the text? How are they embedded in the narrative text? Which constituents of the narrative structure are suitable for realizing intercultural communication? Which communicative functions do the constituents of the narrative structure fulfill in an intercultural context? The contribution sets itself the goal of analyzing the narrative structure to investigate how intercultural communication comes about through narration, how the intercultural information units are integrated into the constituents of the classic narrative structure so that they fulfill their communicative function, and to developa suitable analysis model.

Phosphorous, farms, and families: Institutional narratives about agricultural intensification and water quality in northeastern Wisconsin

Institutional narratives are a discursive form of power where people engage in the development and promulgation of narratives that connect descriptions of how institutions work with arguments for particular courses of action. This paper uses the concept of institutional narratives to analyze how the family farm as a social construct is used as a normative mechanism for meaning making around agricultural intensification and rural sprawl. We examined narratives among residents in the lower Fox River and Green Bay Watersheds of Wisconsin surrounding growth and change and the problem of poor water quality, which occurs primarily through excess phosphorous loading, and identified two institutional narratives among stakeholders, each with different framings of key problems related to water quality. The first narrative problematized agricultural intensification and the second problematized rural sprawl, yet both narratives relied on a societal construct of the family farmer as a cornerstone of ideal rural institutions and an indicator of how change ought to occur. Findings demonstrate ways in which notions of idealized rural community life are politicized though narratives that connect rural problems such as water pollution with normative claims about who has the right to inhabit and use rural spaces.

The Two-Lens Approach

Abstract Over the past 30 years we have seen a welcome growth in the understanding of narrative as a complex and broadly defined set of concepts. While the complexity of children’s narrative development has been brought to light by researchers and theorists across multiple fields of study, reflecting this growth by comprehensively analyzing narrative complexity still remains a challenge. One reason for this ongoing challenge is the isolated, disparate focus of the approaches, either in analyzing solely story structure, content, or function. Few approaches combine these disparate dimensions to comprehensively analyze children’s narratives. In response, we build on research from the past 30 years to develop the Two-Lens Approach, a holistic theoretical framework for analyzing the form, content, and context of children’s narratives. This paper presents and applies this approach in an effort to start closing the gaps among the field of narrative analysis and narrative theory.