Narrative Understanding Research Articles

There’s more to life than the monomyth: multiperspectival approaches to teaching narrative and story in university film and media departments

ABSTRACT This article critiques the ongoing dominance of the Hollywood monomyth in the film and television industry, at least in the UK if not more widely. It considers how this is impacting on the teaching of narrative and story in university film and media departments as they move towards stronger collaborations with industry. It argues for the importance of two-way dialogue to help equip students and their future employers for a world facing complex global challenges. Drawing on the author’s extensive experience in teaching and practice-led research, it advocates for a creative problem-solving approach which decentres conflict-driven models of narrative development, such as the Hero’s Journey, placing them alongside alternative models which engage with the relationship between conflict and harmony in a variety of different ways. Considering narrative structures such as Kishōtenketsu, indigenous storytelling methods and the author’s own work with the Polyphonic Documentary project, the need for a genuinely inclusive and expansive approach is brought to the fore. A mixed economy is considered to be essential, with experimental and traditional approaches preparing students for current industry demands whilst also encouraging them to shape future storytelling landscapes. The argument is made that this is crucial to foster a nuanced understanding of narrative and story that can respond creatively and effectively to the demands of a rapidly changing world.

Narratives of Compulsory Heterosexuality Struggles of Filipino Lesbians in the Selected Poems from Tingle: Anthology of Pinay Lesbian Writings

Utilizing Adrienne Rich's concept of compulsory heterosexuality, this research investigates narratives and struggles of Filipina lesbians as depicted in selected poems from "Tingle: Anthology of Pinay Lesbian Writings." Rich's theory, which describes heterosexuality as a social imperative and not an option available to women, can serve as a critical lens to understand Filipino literature more fully. This research exposes the profound effect of Rich's conception of society on the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ community members in the Philippines. Through careful investigation using qualitative content analysis, themes of social pressure, economic dependence, and compulsory heterosexuality become evident. The findings underlined the urgency of acknowledging and challenging these deeply entrenched struggles, drawing attention to the potential damage imposed by societal norms and perceptions that persist over time. The conclusion of this research calls for greater inclusivity, representation, and support of the LGBTQIA+ community. Institutions across various sectors should actively foster understanding, acceptance, and celebration of diverse narratives to enrich the human experience.

Information extraction tool text2alm: From narratives to action language system descriptions and query answering

In this work we design an information extraction tool text2alm capable of narrative understanding with a focus on action verbs. This tool uses an action language ALM to perform inferences on complex interactions of events described in narratives. The methodology used to implement the text2alm system was originally outlined by Lierler, Inclezan, and Gelfond (In IWCS 2017 – 12th International Conference on Computational Semantics – Short Papers (2017)) via a manual process of converting a narrative to an ALM model. We refine that theoretical methodology and utilize it in design of the text2alm system. This system relies on a conglomeration of resources and techniques from two distinct fields of artificial intelligence, namely, (i) knowledge representation and reasoning and (ii) natural language processing. The effectiveness of system text2alm is measured by its ability to correctly answer questions from the bAbI tasks published by Facebook Research in 2015. This tool matched or exceeded the performance of state-of-the-art machine learning methods in six of the seven tested tasks. We also illustrate that the text2alm approach generalizes to a broader spectrum of narratives. On the path to creating system text2alm, a semantic role labeler text2drs was designed. Its unique feature is the use of the elements of the fine grained linguistic ontology VerbNet as semantic roles/labels in annotating considered text. This paper provides an accurate account on the details behind the text2alm and text2drs systems.

Teaching religious stories in lower primary school: a Norwegian case study of 8-year-old students’ perception of the Moses narratives

ABSTRACT This study investigates the instruction of religious stories of Judaism at the primary school level in a Norwegian educational setting, with a focus on the perceptions of 8-year-old students regarding narratives about Moses. By integrating classroom observations and student interviews, it examines the teacher’s pedagogical approach in instruction and how this influences students’ perceptions. In addition, it explores student’s ability to engage and express themselves independently in encounter with the stories. Theoretical perspectives of philosophy of language, particularly Bakhtin and Taylor, are employed to analyse students’ expressions and perceptions. The findings are situated within the broader context of international research on teaching religious stories in elementary education. International literature highlights the pedagogical benefits of using stories to engage students in critical thinking and foster an understanding of religious narratives. The article aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of how the youngest students navigate and interpret religious instructional material as well as their comprehension of the reasons for learning about Moses. Overall, this study contributes to a comprehension on how the youngest students engage with religious narratives and sheds light on teacher’s pedagogical approaches in RE instruction at the lower primary level.

Contribution to historical manuscript dating: A hybrid approach employing hand-crafted features with vision transformers

Precisely dating historical manuscripts represents a paramount endeavor in the comprehension and the interpretation of their historical significance as well as in the preservation of our cultural heritage; however, despite the strides made in computer-based dating methodologies, the quest for heightened robustness persists. Recent advancements in vision transformers, renowned for their success across diverse image processing domains, have stimulated our inquiry into their potential applicability in the domain of historical manuscript dating. In our pursuit of achieving efficient refinement of the manuscript and ensuring pristine datasets for subsequent analysis, we initiate a meticulous dataset preprocessing step. This involves employing accurate methodologies for denoising through the Non-Local-Means algorithm, and binarization using the Canny-edge detector. Following these preprocessing steps, we delve into the intricate realm of feature detection using the Harris-corner detector. This detector is employed to extract keypoints from the manuscript, and we subsequently apply clustering to these keypoints using the k-means algorithm. Our dual objective here is to extract significant patches of specific dimensions and engage in a systematic augmentation of our dataset. Through this process, we aim to amplify the depth and diversity of our dataset, thereby empowering our models with an enriched corpus of historical knowledge. The final phase of our proposed system unfolds as we leverage the latent power of the sophisticated deep learning architecture known as vision transformers. The model is finetuned to our specific task and re-learned with the automatically extracted handcrafted features, emerges as a formidable classification framework. As an added layer of refinement, we deploy a majority vote mechanism on image patches, meticulously engineered to heighten system accuracy. Our rigorous testing regimen, carried out on the well-known MPS historical document dataset, has yielded results of remarkable caliber. Our system's prowess is vividly reflected in its performance metrics, boasting an impressive Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 3.97 for document-level evaluations and a resounding 7.42 MAE for patch-level assessments. The significance of this work lies in its potential to revolutionize historical manuscript dating, not only by enhancing precision but also by providing a versatile framework adaptable to diverse historical contexts and document types. Beyond its immediate applications, this research paves the way for a deeper understanding of historical narratives, cultures, and the invaluable insights that lie within the annals of our past.

Suffering and misery in history is not a tragic story: the ethical education of seeing differences between narratives

ABSTRACT This article brings out ethical aspects arising in Plato’s classical critique of narrative and imitative art in The Republic, especially when it comes to reading stories about the past. Socrates’s and Glaucon’s most important suggestion, I argue, is to cultivate an ethical consciousness where one ought to see the distinctions between how the real and the imaginary in narratives are to be conceived, and what that insight ethically demands of the reader. Taken as an ethical insight for the reader when engaging in narrative understanding, this should be to resist the temptation to think that past suffering and misery as told in a story can be read analogously to narratives having a tragic plot. The article clarifies the meaning of Plato’s critique through the ideas of Simone Weil, Emmanuel Lévinas and Iris Murdoch. These existential moral philosophers work towards having an ethical consciousness in one’s personal relationship with stories of our lifeworld.

Конституирующие нарративы локальной исторической памяти жителей регионов Сибири: между личным и общественным

The article examines the narratives of local historical self-identification of residents of the Siberian regions of Russia. The main objective of the study was to search for specific ideas, not related to the typical historical myths of the Russian periphery, through which Siberians construct their own social identity. The information base for the study was the results of focus groups conducted in 9 cities of Siberia and the Urals: Perm, Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Barnaul, Kemerovo, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk. It was revealed that the local historical self-identification of Siberians is based on the perceived uncritically typical heroic narrative of the Russian periphery, associated with its development by representatives of the “country,” which is understood as the central government. Among the narratives of local historical memory, narrow local subjects associated with specific territories dominate - from the construction of a bridge across the Ob in Novosibirsk to the development of the coal industry in Kuzbass. Common myths are the narratives of the heroic “development of Siberia” from Ermak to Soviet industrial construction projects. In this form, the identified set of historical myths has a clearly Moscow-centric character and cannot serve as a basis for constructing local identity. However, as soon as the peripheral national narrative comes into conflict with the personal or family experiences of respondents, it corrodes. This leads to a critical understanding of the constitutive narratives of local historical self-identification.

Narrativity and responsible and transparent ai practices

AbstractThis paper builds upon recent work in narrative theory and the philosophy of technology by examining the place of transparency and responsibility in discussions of AI, and what some of the implications of this might be for thinking ethically about AI and especially AI practices, that is, the structured social activities implicating and defining what AI is. In this paper, we aim to show how pursuing a narrative understanding of technology and AI can support knowledge of process and practice through transparency, as well help summon us to responsibility through visions of possibility and of actual harms arising from AI practices. We provide reflections on the relations between narrative, transparency and responsibility, building an argument that narratives (about AI, practices, and those persons implicated in its design, implementation, and deployment) support the kind of knowing and understanding that is the aim of transparency, and, moreover, that such knowledge supports responsibility in informing agents and activating responsibility through creating knowledge about something that can and should be responded to. Furthermore, we argue for considering an expansion of the kinds of practices that we might legitimately consider ‘AI practices’ given the diverse set of (often materially embedded) activities that sustain and are sustained by AI that link directly to its ethical acceptability and which are rendered transparent in the narrative mode. Finally, we argue for an expansion of narratives and narrative sources to be considered in questions of AI, understanding that transparency is multi-faceted and found in stories from diverse sources and people.

News Framing and Platform Affordances in Social Media

ABSTRACT Framing refers to the construction of narratives with specific intentions, emphasizing certain aspects of the story and omitting or obscuring others, thus affecting how audiences perceive social reality. Since the 1960s, journalism researchers have been interested in this phenomenon, developing multiple theories. This research seeks to analyze how framing connects with the affordances of platforms in international conflict news narration on official Instagram and Twitter profiles of Spanish and Qatari media. By examining these platforms, we can delve deeper into the use of framing adapted to the digital environment and explore nuances and implications. To this end, we meticulously analyzed 251 Instagram and Twitter posts from three leading newspapers in both countries, applying grounded theory through an abductive content analysis. This comprehensive approach allowed us to define codes that help us understand how the affordances of the platforms impact the construction of meaning and the establishment of new frames. In conclusion, this study sheds light on how this digital scenario contributes to the deployment of digital frames derived from the unique affordances provided by these platforms, ultimately shaping our perception, and understanding of news narratives and offering insights into the evolving nature of media communications.

When the Foreign Becomes Familiar: The Glass Bead Assemblage from Madjedbebe, Northern Australia

By investigating the materiality of colonial encounters, specifically the consumption of introduced commodities by Indigenous peoples, archaeologists can explore questions concerning value, agency, consumer choice and localization. This has the significant capacity to broaden understandings of intercultural encounters and challenge colonial narratives. Glass beads represent one of the earliest foreign material culture introductions to the Indigenous peoples of Australia. The rock-shelter site of Madjedbebe, best known for yielding the oldest evidence to date for human occupation in Australia, also contains one of the largest assemblages from an Indigenous site context in Australia—51 glass beads and associated fragments. We present here an analysis of these objects—through attribute and microwear analysis—in concert with the archival record, to reveal the ways in which Bininj (Aboriginal people) incorporated glass beads into their own lifeways.

An Interdisciplinary interpretation of literature through the lens of Quantum Theory

This paper explores the interdisciplinary intersection between Quantum Theory and literary analysis, particularly focusing on William Shakespeare’s "Hamlet." By examining the character of Hamlet through the principles of quantum mechanics, specifically Schrödinger's wave function and the concept of superposition, we aim to demonstrate how scientific metaphors can provide novel insights into literary texts. This approach not only deepens our understanding of characters and narratives but also bridges the gap between the sciences and the humanities, highlighting their interconnectedness and mutual relevance. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of this interdisciplinary methodology, its limitations, and future directions for research. By employing quantum theory and the Schrödinger equation as metaphors, we gain deeper insights into the intricate layers of Hamlet’s character and the overarching themes of the play. This interdisciplinary approach enriches our understanding of Shakespeare’s work, highlighting the profound connections between the uncertainties and probabilities in quantum mechanics and the existential dilemmas faced by Hamlet. This perspective not only offers a unique lens for literary analysis but also demonstrates the potential for cross-disciplinary interpretations to enhance our appreciation of classic literature.

Accounting for ourselves and others: Living psychosocial hauntologies

Bhekizizwe Peterson’s interdisciplinarity was wide ranging and displayed his easy familiarity with the Arts, Social Sciences and Philosophy. The breadth of his interests and oeuvre make him genuinely psychosocial, interested, for example, in psychoanalytic issues of mourning and melancholia and bringing this together with deep understandings of narratives and the ways in which the archive demonstrates that assumptions of intergenerational ruptures are overblown since, for example, mourning, melancholia and the rewriting of the archive was a feature of pre-1994 Black South Africa so that pre-1994 has left a wake in the present and for the future. This article takes up Bhekizizwe’s focus on haunting byconsidering how people position themselves in psychosocial, intersectional histories. provoked by everyday subjection to racism. It analyses ‘found narratives’, traces of particular people and/or groups, captured in, for example, filmed documentaries or social media as well as media interviews. It argues that their accounts of everyday subjection to racism are linked to psychosocial, intersectional histories in ways that demonstrate the importance of recognising that unacknowledged histories of racism haunt the present, reproducing the dehumanizing of groups subjected to racism and potentially spurring those affected to consciousness and calls for political action.

가능세계의 양상 논리 시스템을 활용한 전설 서사 분석 모델 연구

This study develops a new analysis methodology for legendary narratives based on the possible world theory. As part of this, it develops a narrative analysis model. Unlike “traditional narratology,” possible world theory enables new and diverse approaches related to narrative by establishing various worlds created through stories, and it allows the establishment of related hypotheses and theories. Particularly, it provides a methodology for a new understanding of narratives that are difficult to establish in literature or history, such as legendary narratives.
 Legends are often regarded as fictional narratives that have a certain degree of historicity with temporal and spatial limitations and evidence but are differentiated from history. However, according to White, history is also a fictional narrative that creates a specific world by constructing a plot and indicates a specific ideology or meaning. Finally, historical narratives are simply narratives related to the history of actual events, whereas legendary narratives are non-historical narratives about a world believed to have existed. By breaking away from the conventional perspective of mimesis and assuming various possible worlds, we can plan a new methodology for narrative research by examining the worlds presented by narratives.
 In this discussion, a model for analyzing legend narratives was presented using Doležel's modal logic system. The alethic, deontic, axiological, and epistemic plots were established as segmented units and analysis items that operate in the story world. The modes of each stage of the narrative were analyzed and connected to create meaning in the form of a single sentence. This analysis model was applied to Song Si-yeol legends handed down in the Goesan region to analyze the composition principles of the narrative text and the meaning of the narrative. By applying the secondary narrative analysis model using a modal logic system, it is possible to examine the semantics of the story world within a systematic framework, rather than simply finding the primary indicative meaning or subjective and abstract commentary of the legendary narratives.

Постколоніальна теорія та її застосування до пострадянських держав

This paper aims to reveal the constraints of traditional postcolonial theory, particularly in its application in the post-Soviet space, and to argue the need to study the post-Soviet space through the prism of this theory, considering the colonial nature of the Soviet Union. It focuses on analysing the limitations of postcolonial theory concerning the so-called «Second World» and singling out distinctive attributes of the Russian imperial regime and its enduring aftermath. The authors had studied constraints within the postcolonial theory, in particular, the centrality of racist-related experience and narratives regarding «Second World». These limitations pave the way for a broader understanding of post-Soviet states' complex historical narratives. We analyse the expansionist ambitions of the Russian Empire (as well as its successor, the Soviet Union) both Eastward and Westward and its colonial practices imposed upon indigenous populations in newly acquired territories. This analysis showcases how Russian colonialism endured even after the collapse of the empire, finding a new life in Bolshevik ideology. In particular, the article provides data that testify USSR’s economic colonialism toward Ukraine. It is shown that due to autonomy development after Bolshevik revolution, Baltic states managed to implement robust institutional and economic reforms before the Soviet Union re-annexed their territories. In stark contrast, other territories, including Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, were swiftly absorbed by the Bolshevik regime following the demise of the imperial government. This dichotomy sheds light on the intricate process of decolonisation, demonstrating that true independence for some former Russian colonies only materialised after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The authors suggest that adopting a quasi-colonial lens to view the Soviet Regime provides profound insights into the challenges impeding the development of post-Soviet states. This paper offers a comprehensive understanding of the postcolonial dynamics in the post-Soviet states. It sheds light on not just the historical intricacies but also the contemporary challenges these nations face, thus contributing to a richer scholarly discourse on postcolonialism and its evolving relevance in the modern world.

Psychological Underpinnings of Terror Awareness: A Comprehensive Dive into Ukrainians’ Perception of Terrorist Threats Amidst War Tensions

This article delves into the intricate dynamics of terrorist threat perceptions, particularly within the context of the Russian–Ukrainian war. By weaving together narrative understanding, cognitive and metacognitive styles, the challenges of information warfare, neuropsychological reactions, and resilience mechanisms, the research casts light on the complex interplay of psychological factors that shape Ukrainians’ perception of terrorist threats. Drawing from a diverse participant pool, the study identifies four major factors: “Comprehensive Threat Response and Socio-Psychological Terror Impact,” “Eco-Social Strain Perception and Cultural Identity and Societal Concerns,” “Physical and Societal Vulnerability and Intrinsic Fears and Moral Evolution,” and “Interpersonal Strains and Behavioral Indicators.” These elements offer an intricate understanding of how terrorist threats are perceived at both individual and societal levels. The findings underscore the importance of interdisciplinary and holistic approaches in comprehending and navigating the nuances of perceived threats amidst geopolitical unrest.

Complex business ecosystem intelligence using AI-powered visual analytics

Business ecosystems are complex, dynamic systems characterized by a multitude of entities, including companies, ventures, and technologies, as well as activities and trends. Understanding the state of business ecosystems is an increasingly critical strategic imperative for many decision makers, but it is a resource-intensive activity as relevant information sources are dispersed, often highly unstructured, and not integrated or curated to deliver actionable insights. In this research, we present the design and implementation of an interactive visual analytic system that integrates artificial intelligence and graph visualization techniques to augment decision makers’ understanding of the complex public narrative associated with business ecosystems entities. Our system is driven by a real-time content engine of 100,000+ global data sources including press releases, news articles, industry reports, analyst blogs in multiple languages organized across several domain-specific repositories. Following a user-specified query, the engine extracts both domain-agnostic and domain-specific entities and concepts for each document in the result set. We then model and visualize the resulting data as a dynamic, multipartite network and implement graph pruning algorithms and interactive data controls to enable users to interactively explore and discover the underlying business ecosystem from multiple perspectives. We illustrate and discuss the value of our system using representative use cases. Our study makes multiple contributions to visual decision support theory and practice, including mining unstructured data, constructing and interacting with knowledge graphs, and designing visual analytic tools for ecosystem intelligence. We conclude the study with implications and future research opportunities.

Transformative Practices From the Pluriverse

This Discussant Commentary seeks to delve into the fundamental principles underlying the study conducted by Miraval & Quintana (2023). Their article explores the concept of adaptive humanism as a means to transition from limiting to quantum narratives, recognizing the profound impact of these concepts on our perception of reality. As Latinos, we highly value research that empowers diverse voices, acknowledging the significance of individuals and groups embracing and expressing their unique narratives. This emphasis on understanding one's "modes of being in the world" deviates from the idea of a singular universal worldview, a perspective that Miraval & Quintana (2023) aptly characterized as endorsing "one-size-fits-all" approaches. It is crucial to underscore the necessity of comprehending the intricacies of the modern paradigm, challenging conventional notions of centrality to transcend singular perspectives that perpetuate the prevalence of limiting narratives. Furthermore, this paper places additional emphasis on the pivotal role of methodological approaches in empowering individuals to grasp the intricate processes of transformation within their spaces from a decolonial perspective. This involves fostering dynamics of co-creation and proactive participation within communities to create mechanisms for understanding alternative ways of being and relating to the world. Such an approach requires a direct understanding of narratives from their sources, facilitating the construction of individual, distinctive paths.

A qualitative phenomenological exploration of prolonged grief in New Delhi, India.

Prolonged grief disorder (PGD) is a condition characterized by difficulty in coping effectively with the loss of loved ones. The proposed diagnostic criteria for PGD have been based predominantly on research from developed Western nations. The cultural variations associated with experience and expression of grief and associated mourning rituals have not been considered comprehensively. The current study aimed to understand the experience of prolonged grief in India through a qualitative enquiry with mental health professionals (focus group discussions) and affected individuals (key informant interviews). Several novel findings diverging from the current understanding of manifestation and narratives of PGD emerged from the study, including differences in the social contexts of bereavement and culture-specific magico-religious beliefs and idioms of distress. The findings point to limitations of existing diagnostic systems for PGD. The results of this study suggest that the assumption of content equivalence for psychiatric disorders across cultures may not be justified and that there is a need to develop culturally sensitive diagnostic criteria and assessment scales for PGD.

The Case of Literary Journalism: Rethinking Fictionality, Narrativity, and Imagination

ABSTRACT This article discusses the genre of literary journalism/reportage against a background of earlier assumptions on fictionality. At a local level in nonfiction, fictionality can be expressed through invented stories and scenarios that create a contrast to the global, nonfictive context. However, fictionality can also be expressed through stylistic devices that traditionally have been associated with narrative fiction. A local contrast may appear, but only if the genre in itself is not narrative. If the focus is on the nonfictional and narrative genre of literary journalism/reportage, there will be no contrast. Here, the rhetoric will work just like in narrative fiction and should be considered to be part of the features of narrativity. Furthermore, the concept imagination should be perceived in close relation to Monika Fludernik’s understanding of narrative as experience. The conclusion is a call to partly rethink existing connections between fictionality, narrativity, and imagination in order to better understand the narrative nature of reportage.

Designing an illustrated book as an educational medium to introduce Ronggeng Gunung dance to the younger generation: an effort to preserve traditional dance

This research delves into Ronggeng Gunung dance, a traditional folk art from West Java, Indonesia, which, despite its cultural significance, remains relatively unknown. The study focuses on the crucial task of introducing this dance form to the younger generation, leveraging their receptiveness and curiosity. The primary objective is achieved through an illustrated book, offering a visual journey into the cultural roots and historical context of Ronggeng Gunung. The research extends beyond documentation by integrating educational aspects, providing insights into dance attire and musical components, and a comparative analysis of the dance's evolution over time. To accomplish this, a qualitative descriptive method is employed, grounded in accurate facts. Diverse data collection methods include a Literature Study covering books, articles, and journals related to Ronggeng Gunung dance, Observation of the traditional art form through archival and documentary examination, and Interviews with original sources to obtain authentic information. Additionally, Questionnaires assess the younger generation's interest in traditional dance, their knowledge of Ronggeng Gunung, and their preferences for the illustrated book's style. The overarching aim is to cultivate awareness and facilitate the preservation of traditional Ronggeng Gunung dance. After meticulous data collection and analysis, the research advances through design, media, and visual concepts, culminating in the creation of the illustrated book. A beta test validates its impact on the younger generation, demonstrating that the incorporation of a popular illustration style effectively captivates the audience. This outcome underscores the success of the book in fostering a more engaging and comprehensible understanding of the Ronggeng Gunung dance narrative for the younger audience.