Narrative Rhetoric Research Articles

The Narrative Rhetoric of the Spanish Civil War: Examples from the Works of Three Left-wing Artists During the War

The Spanish Civil War, which broke out on July 17, 1936, has great significance throughout history. This civil war was a rehearsal for the Second World War that broke out later. Different national forces and different ideologies clashed and collided fiercely in Spain. This article will start with three left-wing artists who participated in the Spanish Civil War in different ways, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Robert Capa, and analyze how these artists' works spread the special narrative of the Spanish Civil War. This article will use a documentary analysis approach to analyze the connotations that these three artists want to express through their different works. This article will also analyze how these artists played an important role in consolidating anti-fascist and anti-war consensus through their unique media.

Rhetorical Narrative Theory and the Act of Telling: Reflections on the Search for a New Paradigm

Rhetorical Narrative Theory and the Act of Telling: Reflections on the Search for a New Paradigm

The Structures of Political, Economic, and Socio-cultural Rhetorical Narratives on Social Media

This research was conducted on the ground of the reason for the increasingly widespread use of narratives on various social media platforms. Narrative is an event whereby someone represents an event aiming to influence the understanding, emotions and values of others. This study qualitatively aims to capture the most common elements of narrative structure focusing on political, economic, and socio-cultural rhetorical narratives data originated from social media platforms. The theoretical model of narrative structure consisting of Abstract, Orientation, Complicating Actions, Resolution, Evaluation and Coda, as proposed by Labov and Waletzky was used to analyze the narrative data collected during the first four months of 2022. On the ground of social situated meanings, the findings show that the most common model of narrative structure is fully used whenever greater details of events, facts, or information are needed to be emphasized. For such reasons, all the elements of narrative structure are held to be obligatory. The findings show that some elements of narrative structure are left out and held to be optional as such elements are not considered necessary to convey the main content. In addition, the findings also show that some particular element allows it to be further developed with more embedded events, facts, opinion, or information.

Who controls ‘the narrative’? journalistic emplotment and political discourse in the networked public sphere

Over the last decade there has been a massive spike in use of the word ‘narrative’ in both media reportage and political discourse. This essay interrogates the rhetorical function and theoretical assumptions of this widespread usage, arguing that narrative rhetoric operates as a form of metajournalistic discourse shaping coverage of domestic politics and international relations while revealing an anxiety about the authority of contemporary news media. The prominence and semantic variability of the word narrative in public discourse is both a symptom of and a response to an epistemological crisis wrought by information overload and a fragmented public sphere in the digital age. The essay examines usage of the familiar phrase ‘control the narrative’ to reveal how journalistic discourse self-reflexively frames the dynamics of cultural debate. In this formulation, ‘the narrative’ operates as a synonym for what Chadwick (2017) calls the ‘political information cycle' in a hybrid news system, signifying an ongoing discursive struggle in which news media construct their moral and epistemological Others in a global communications network: social media, foreign state-run media, and competing news media. By tracking the phrase in coverage of the global COVID-19 outbreak and the notorious Steele Dossier in five major US dailies throughout 2020, this article demonstrates how the metajournalistic quality of narrative rhetoric facilitates an intramedia struggle for moral and referential authority in the networked public sphere.

“Bardo, or the Mexican digital diaspora”

ABSTRACT Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo, falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades/Bardo False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022) raises important questions about the nature of national film culture in the age to global film commerce. The product of a collaboration between the Mexican filmmaker and Netflix, the US-based global streaming service, Bardo crystalizes long-simmering concerns about digital technologies that have shaped film production and distribution and their impact on contemporary Mexican movie-going audiences. The film’s narrative rhetoric is directed to ‘Greater Mexico’, a cultural community beyond traditional territorial borders. With the objective of calling into question the effects of digitally-driven globalization, the film focuses on the crisis of conscience of creative artist Silverio Gama (Daniel Giménez Cacho), whose symbolic cross-border journey has blurred the lines between the Mexican identity instilled in him by cultural tradition and politics and the post-national environment which, through globalized mass media flows, has since reshaped his outlook. This odyssey to his intimate past eventually leads Silverio to recognize the falseness of his assumption of his own Mexicanness and to acknowledge the progressive evolution of an emerging Mexican culture forged in the borderless, unbounded spaces formed by transnational commerce.

Co-Creation of a Center for a Regenerative Future

We present the ideas, conditions, and environments that motivated our co-creation of a Center for a Regenerative Future at the University of Denver. There is an emerging consensus among scholars and a widening realization among younger generations that the concept of sustainability has exhausted its utility as a framework and rhetorical narrative for creating a viable future for humanity. Growing levels of eco-anxiety related to climate change, loss of biodiversity, and their social and economic consequences suggest that efforts to achieve ‘sustainability’ or ‘sustainable development’ are not succeeding. Dominant sustainability paradigms typically rest on an anthropocentric culture–nature dualism and a mechanistic worldview that perpetuates a growth-based economic system that is socially inequitable and ecologically destructive. Regenerative paradigms offer holistic understandings of Earth systems, with accompanying commitments to social and ecological justice. They support the development of resilient communities that allow for wider economic prosperity, security, and global environmental healing. We share the successes, challenges, and experiences associated with our effort to create a Center for a Regenerative Future in the hope that others can leverage this information to build their own regenerative institutions, communities, and practices.

The Purpose of the Book of Ruth

Numerous scholars argue that the book of Ruth, with its story concerning mixed marriages of Judahites with Moabite women, consciously opposes the exclusivist rhetoric of the books of Ezra–Nehemiah. However, a detailed analysis of the narrative rhetoric of the book of Ruth, especially compared to the supersessive rhetoric of the roughly contemporary books of Samuel–Kings, reveals that the main purpose of the book of Ruth was to delegitimize the claims of the tribe of Ephraim to domination in Israel, and against this background to promote the tribe of Judah with its Davidic dynasty. Therefore, the book of Ruth most probably served as a rhetorical-ideological model for the much more elaborate, likewise consciously Judean narrative of the books of Samuel–Kings.

Educational policy agenda, ideological transformation and radical right populism: the case of the education-identity nexus of the Northern League in Italy, 1994-2018

ABSTRACT The study of the relationship between parties and education policies has so far largely disregarded populist parties. Despite the success of this party family, little attention has been paid to their proposals in terms of education and interpretation of the role of schools and higher education in society. The central research question of the paper concerns the development of the educational agenda of the Northern League party in Italy, from 1994 to 2018. If the general framework suggests that political parties are losing power and influence in education matters, Italy can be considered an interesting deviant case. Education policy is politically divisive, with multiple stakeholders, different ideological preferences and vested interests. It should therefore come as no surprise that a party, as deeply rooted in the Italian party and political system as the Northern League, has invested in positioning itself in education policies both in terms of identity and argumentative strategies associated with the use of political symbols. Against this background, the purpose of the paper is to study how the Northern League’s education agenda is shaped by symbolic frames and rhetorical narratives that illustrate and reflect the ideological tenets and evolution of the party over the last decades.

Meatsplaining: The Animal Agriculture Industry and the Rhetoric of Denial

Meatsplaining: The Animal Agriculture Industry and the Rhetoric of Denial

THE FORMALIZATION AND INTENSIFICATION OF RITUALS: THE CULT OF “108 EFFICACY AND HEROIC MARTYRS” IN VIETNAM

The worship of “108 Chiêu Ứng Anh Liệt (Efficacy and Heroic Martyrs)” of the Hainan Chinese had its primary form taken place long time ago in Hainan Island but was then standardized and formalized in Vietnam after one incident occurred on the central coast of the country. In 1851, a group of Hainanese merchants were unjustly killed offshore. In the same year, they were vindicated and ordained by King Tự Đức of the Nguyễn Vietnam. With imperial sanction, the worship easily transformed its sacred symbolisms, thus becoming a public cult and significant landmark of the Hainan Chinese communities in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The cult followed the Hainanese merchants in spreading to Hainan Island of China. From the perspective of cultural studies, combined with historical research and fieldwork methods, the authors find out that this expansion is not spontaneous. Nonetheless, it contains the collective consciousness and rhetorical narratives of the Hainanese community. The worship of 108 Chiêu Ứng Anh Liệt has to a certain extent become a symbol of the “going-upstream spirit” of the community, which covers hidden cultural and political discourse in a cross-border context.

Deolito V. Vistar. The Cross-and-Resurrection: The Supreme Sign in John’s Gospel

Deolito V. Vistar. <i>The Cross-and-Resurrection: The Supreme Sign in John’s Gospel</i>

The Quest of the Grassroots Heroes: Narrative Resilience in Nonprofit Organizing for Human Trafficking Prevention

ABSTRACT Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) dedicated to human trafficking prevention – like the A21 Campaign – can inspire grassroots organizing and localize international advocacy through their websites’ rhetorical narratives. Through the strategic embodiment of organizational identification and narrative resilience, the A21 Campaign motivates members to further the NPO’s activism in their respective communities. By centering volunteer advocates as heroes, framing advocacy outcomes as multi-dimensional, and localizing outreach to globalize impact, the A21 Campaign’s website underscores that narrative-based advocacy must recognize the importance of place, actively support grassroots abolitionists, and reaffirm that survivors’ stories persist far beyond their initial escapes. Implications regarding moral subjectivity, power tensions, and survivor representation emerge, warranting continued discussion of how colonization, surveillance, and inequity can thwart critical efforts to seek transformative global change in gender equality and inclusive activism.

Narratives in Kailash Satyarthi’s Nobel Peace Prize lecture: an analysis of rhetorical agency

In 2014, the Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to Indian-born Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistani-born Malala Yousafzai in recognition of their struggle against the suppression of children. They accepted the prize on behalf of the world’s children who were facing injustices such as poverty, poor labor conditions, forced servitude, and terrorism. Since the Nobel Foundation statutes require the Nobel Laureates to give a lecture at the Nobel Prize Ceremony, Kailash Satyarthi—whose speech is the focus of this study—delivered a Nobel Peace Prize lecture on December 10th, 2014, at Oslo City Hall, Norway. In his lecture, he raised the plight of millions of children on the global stage. This paper offers new insights into the narrative rhetoric concerning each child’s freedom in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, which demonstrates his life-long mission to help children to enjoy their childhood. Adopting an overarching theoretical lens of narrative rhetoric and agency perspective, the paper analyses the speaker’s agency in his narrative of the plight of children in the face of injustices prevalent across societies and cultures. In doing so, the paper highlights Satyarthi’s employment of narrative rhetoric coupled with his rescuer agency, which appeals to the global citizens to create peaceful, humane, and just societies for children. We argue that his narrative serves as a powerful rhetorical device for arguments, which reinforces his ethos as a life-long champion of children’s rights.

The visual and narrative rhetoric of mental health in Gris

Interdisciplinary game studies have long been fascinated by video games and their potential to improve mental health. Despite this interest, there is not yet a cohesive rhetorical framework to connect conversations about mental health with specific types of games. Following call to adopt the term ‘cosy’ for games which inspire feelings of safety in players, encourage self-actualization and utilize soft aesthetics helps clarify discussions of the games suited to help improve mental health and allow players to process complex emotions. This article uses a close reading of the Nomada Studios game Gris to argue that considering cosiness when studying the connection between games, emotion and mental health will help researchers find a connection between game aesthetics and the types of psychological issues that a game can address effectively.

Narrative as Social Action: Making Rhetorical Narrative Theory Accountable to Context

AbstractThe current reckoning with systemic bias and discrimination calls for centering historical and social context in narrative theory, as in other domains of academic and public life. This article undertakes that centering in rhetorical narrative theory. Informed by genre theory, it argues for theorizing narrative occasion by focusing on two dimensions: 1) the social positions it entails and 2) the conceptual frameworks it engages. Readings of two German-language texts, Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1774/1787) and Babak Ghassim and Usama Elyas's “Behind Us, My Country” (2015), establish continua for mapping these social positions and conceptual frameworks and for evaluating their thematic salience in the narrative. Crucially, these methods are applied not only to text-internal figures like narrators and characters but also to the real-world parties to narrative: authors and actual readers. In addition to providing a framework for describing narrative occasion, this socially attuned analysis highlights problems with rhetorical narrative theory's treatment of audience, particularly its idealization of the authorial audience. The article thus points the way toward dismantling the universal thinking embedded in other narratological categories and suggests that rhetorical and cognitive narrative theories could be combined to understand how cognitive frameworks shape narrative occasion.

The Death of Others. On the Narrative Rhetoric of Neoliberal Thanatopolitics

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) are deeply controversial topics both within and beyond disability studies, involving issues of structural ableism, discrimination, and the right to self-determination. A common defence of the legalization of PAS, as distinct from euthanasia, rests on the right of an individual to freely choose when to end one's life. This essay makes an intervention in this debate by examining the rhetoric of media and cultural narratives that directly and indirectly address the issue of PAS and autonomous choice. Considering these narratives from a biopolitical point of view, I argue that contemporary thanatopolitical narratives draw on a particular rhetorical mode, known as "parrhesiastic rhetoric" or anti-rhetoric. This mode helps frame the testimony of extremely vulnerable individuals as a supremely credible argument in favor of the legalization of PAS. Moreover, it engenders sympathy rather than identification with these narrative subjects, ensuring that the death that is being justified remains at a distance from the reader, safely positioned as the death of others. I further argue that this narrative rhetoric supports a particular, neoliberal conception of autonomy, in which individual subjects are dynamic, rational and self-directing. In neoliberal thanatos political discourse, the choice to die is seen as fundamentally an outcome of individual, informed decision-making. Against this atomistic framework, I deploy the analyses of biopolitical disability studies to contribute to a better understanding of the historical, socio-economic, cultural, and rhetorical forces that shape contemporary debates over euthanasia and PAS.

The reflective practitioner in transition. Probation work during reintegration of probation services in England and Wales

This article evaluates the recent history of probation services in England and Wales. The author – currently working as a Practice Teacher Assessor in the Probation Service – considers the politicisation of probation, identified as one outcome of a rhetorical narrative to ‘act tough’ on crime and the impact of the New Public Management model of organisational accountability, its focus on performance and targets, and, arguably, the diminution of the professional role. Following semi-privatisation, and currently reintegration, of probation services, the article puts forward an argument for a realignment of practice, to focus on the supervisory relationship, professional autonomy, and the reflective practitioner.

‘Even Though I Get a Loan, My Husband Controls It’: Rhetoric Versus Reality of Empowering Bangladeshi Women Through Microfinance Programs

AbstractThis study investigates the development intervention of microfinance programs with women borrowers in strong patriarchal communities such as in rural Bangladesh. Using Rahman's framework (1999) of 'public transcript' vs. 'hidden transcript', we describe how women's structural vulnerability is understood and leveraged by the microfinance institutions (MFIs). The findings in this paper is based on data from 331 surveys and 40 in-depth interviews from Dumuria, a southern sub-district of Bangladesh. We found that MFIs’ providers largely conceptualized women's empowerment as increasde in financial participation, mobility and household decision-making. Although the MFIs present microfinance programs as successfully contributing to women’s empowerment, we found that the patriarchal gender norm(s) pervasive in rural Bangladesh meant that men controlled and used most of the microfinance loans. We also found that MFI's do little to monitor or address this issue, instead, they emphasizing high loan recovery rates as evidence of women’s empowerment. Furthermore, MFIs leveraged women's structural vulnerability apparent in the gendered division of labour, mobility restrictions, and notions of honour and shame to ensure the high recovery rates. We conclude that MFIs obscure the reality of their ulterior profit-making motives with the rhetoric of false narratives of women's empowerment.

Andre E. Johnson, No Future in This Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner

<i>Andre E. Johnson</i>, No Future in This Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner

MANY ARE CRYING, “WHO WILL SHOW US ANY GOOD?” – VOICES OF DECEMBER 2007 POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE VICTIMS IN KENYA

Purpose: This study analyzes and brings to light the voices of the victims who suffered particularly the socio-economic effects of the 2007 December violence and land clashes that took place in Kenya. During the 2007 December violence and land clashes, women, children and men were affected differently by the conflict, with women and children suffering most of the effects such as death, physical injuries and insufficient resources to take care of their basic needs. Consequently, as women experienced the immediate consequences of the conflict, they were the first to receive humanitarian assistance from international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like the Red Cross and a few indigenous ones. The voices of the victims narrating the violence they went through and the trauma they lived with would engage the minds of peace-caring persons to speak against violence of this nature in the future.&#x0D; Methodology: Utilizing a qualitative study approach, the study focuses on 17 interview transcripts, statements taken from Kenyan newspapers of January 2008, online newspapers during the same period, eyewitness accounts as recorded in papers. For the theoretical framework, I used thematic analysis because these were stories “told” by the affected individuals.&#x0D; Findings: My aim was to purposely establish how the rhetorical narratives as told by the affected individuals “chain out”. Are there any running main themes and patterns across the narratives? What is the “master narrative? What are the “counter narratives”, how are they constructed, and how do they attack the master narrative? One of the key issues I identified in my literature review as the cause of violence in Kenya is land. Violence was rampant and severe in the rich agricultural region of the Rift Valley.&#x0D; Unique contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: The study underscores the importance of listening to people’s voices and the stories as told by the victims themselves. Narrative framework and mainly thematic analysis framework helped in the analysis of the stories told by the violence victims. The country seemed to be polarized along ethnic lines – which to me, is a big deterrent for development. Politically, people need to be educated on their political rights and not be misused by politicians for their own advantage. The government, the judicial system, the church and the Electoral Commission of Kenya should address the issues raised by these traumatized and overwhelmed individuals.