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  • Unnatural Narrative Theory
    Style, 2016
    Co-Authors: Brian Richardson
    Abstract:

    Unnatural Narrative Theory is the Theory of fictional Narratives that defy the conventions of nonfictional Narratives and of fiction that closely resembles nonfiction. It theorizes fiction that displays its own fictionality, and focuses on works that break (or only partly enter into) the mimetic illusion. Paradigmatic examples of unnatural Narratives include Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable and many of his later texts, Alain Robbe-Grillet's La Jalousie (and other works that employ this kind of construction), Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Anna Kavan's Ice, Angela Carter's The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. For a pithy example of the unnatural in a single phrase, one may go to Christine Brooke-Rose's line in Thru: "Whoever you invented invented you too" (53). Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan comments on that line--and the Narrative as a whole--in the following terms: "The novel repeatedly reverses the hierarchy [of Narrative levels], transforming a narrated object into a narrating agent and vice versa. The very distinction between outside and inside, container and contained, narrating subject and narrated object, higher and lower level collapses" (94). For an example centered on events, we may adduce the following passage from Mark Leyner in My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist: "He's got a car bomb. He puts the keys in the ignition and turns it--the car blows up. He gets out. He opens the hood and makes a cursory inspection. He closes the hood and gets back in. He turns the key in the ignition. The car blows up. He gets out and slams the door shut disgustedly" (59). Here, an impossible sequence of events is depicted. Unnatural fiction is different not only from mimetic fiction but also from what I call nonmimetic or nonnatural fiction. Nonmimetic Narratives include conventional fairy tales, animal fables, ghost stories, and other kinds of fiction that invoke magical or supernatural elements. Such Narratives employ consistent storyworlds and obey established generic conventions or, in some cases, merely add a single supernatural component to an otherwise naturalistic world. By contrast, unnatural texts do not attempt to extend the boundaries of the mimetic, but rather play with the very conventions of mimesis. (1) EXIGENCY In most models of Narrative Theory, both ancient and modern, there has been little consideration of or space for highly imaginative, experimental, antirealistic, impossible, or parodic figures and events. Instead, we generally find a pronounced inclination or even a strong bias in favor of mimetic or realistic concepts; often, fictional characters, events, and settings are analyzed in the same terms or perspectives that are normally used for actual persons, events, and settings. (2) In many types of Narrative Theory, the model or default type of Narrative was and still is a more or less mimetic one. (3) This is even largely true of structuralist narratology, despite its scientific posture and desire to transcend humanism, as Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck have thoroughly established (41-101, esp. 63-65, 69-70, 82-86, 101). To be sure, there have been a number of exceptional theorists who have attempted to go well beyond the parameters of the mimetic, including Viktor Shklovsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jean Ricardou, Christine Brooke-Rose, David Hayman, Leonard Orr, Brian McHale, J. Hillis Miller, and Werner Wolf (see Richardson, Unnatural Narrative 23-27). The fact remains, however, that most current narratological accounts continue to employ substantially or exclusively mimetic models. Thus, on the subject of Narrative time, nearly all general works of Narrative Theory or narratological handbooks employ and limit themselves to Genette's categories of order, duration, and frequency. The category of order contrasts the sequence of events presented in the text (recit, sjuzet) with the sequence of events we can derive from the text and place into a chronological order (histoire, fabula). …

  • unnatural Narrative Theory history and practice
    2015
    Co-Authors: Brian Richardson
    Abstract:

    * Richardson, Brian. Unnatural Narrative: Theory, History, and Practice. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 20x5.197 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8142-1279-0. * Alber, Jan. Unnatural Narrative: Impossible Worlds in Fiction and Drama. Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P, 2016. 294 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8032-7868-4. Unnatural narratology has become one of the most prominent recent developments in Narrative Theory. It started around the year 2000 with the work of Brian Richardson, who collected his explorations of unnatural Narratives in his 2006 study Unnatural Voices. The approach quickly attracted a group of young scholars, focusing on unusual fictional texts and questioning the usual narratological concepts. Among them were Jan Alber, Stefan Iversen, Maria Makela, and Henrik Skov Nielsen. The term "unnatural" obviously alluded to Monika Fludernik's "natural narratology" (1996). Fludernik was inspired by Jonathan Culler's idea of "naturalization," stressing the ways in which readers try to turn alienating texts into something they can understand. Richardson, on the other hand, took his cue from postmodernist fiction and poststructuralist theories, stressing the irreducibility of the alien and the exceptional. Culler's "naturalization" is a strategy that turns the peculiar and the unknown into the known. It depends upon "cultural and literary models" supposedly present in readers' heads (138). These models range from general cultural patterns of signification, such as intentionality, to specific literary knowledge of periods and genres. The application of the models normalizes the abnormal: "'Naturalization' emphasizes the fact that the strange or deviant is brought within a discursive order and thus made to seem natural" (137). Fludernik elaborates on and updates Culler's study of these models via cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis. From William Labov she borrows the term "natural Narrative"--oral, everyday stories people tell each other. Fludernik develops Culler's concept of models into her concept of frames; she uses the term "experientiality" to describe the central process of normalization (as soon as a reader recognizes a center of experience in a Narrative, he or she can come to grips with the text); and she replaces the term "naturalization" with "narrativation." Although Fludernik's basic idea is that people tend to normalize the abnormal, she does realize that some texts cannot be fully normalized. Narratives such as James Joyce's Finnegans Wake remain "unreadable" (Towards 293). They result in collapse: When narrativization breaks down, whether incipiently or in full measure, it does so where the consciousness factor can no longer be utilized to tide over radical inconsistency, and this happens first and foremost where overall textual coherence or micro-level linguistic coherence (and cohesion) are at risk. (317) The preference for consistency and narrativization that seems to underlie formulations like these is precisely what Richardson's unnatural narratology rejects. Simply put, he sees the process of naturalization as a form of reductionism, which smooths over the problematic aspects of Narrative texts and which reformulates the new into something old. In this way, the complex, literary, and disruptive nature of the Narrative is disregarded. Unnatural narratology, on the other hand, holds this complex nature in high regard and wants to respect it in its interpretation. The fundamental differences between the two narratological views were formulated clearly in a joint 2010 essay by Alber et al. They claimed that natural and classical narratology are guilty of "mimetic reductionism" ("Unnatural Narratives" 115) as they reduce the sophistication of literary Narrative to everyday storytelling. The theorists point to three levels of literary "unnaturalness" (116): unnatural storyworlds (in which impossible things happen), unnatural minds (e.g., a character that knows he is being narrated by someone else, or an omniscient character), and unnatural acts of narration (e. …

  • unnatural narratology basic concepts and recent work jan alber rudiger heinze unnatural Narratives unnatural narratology berlin 2011 per krogh hansen stefan iversen henrik skov nielsen rolf reitan eds strange voices in Narrative fiction berlin 2011 d
    DIEGESIS, 2012
    Co-Authors: Brian Richardson
    Abstract:

    Rezension zu / Review of: Jan Alber / Rudiger Heinze: Unnatural Narratives – Unnatural Narratology. Berlin 2011. Per Krogh Hansen / Stefan Iversen / Henrik Skov Nielsen / Rolf Reitan (Eds.): Strange Voices in Narrative Fiction. Berlin  2011. David Herman / James Phelan / Peter Rabinowitz / Brian Richardson / Robyn Warhol: Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates . Columbus 2012.

  • recent concepts of Narrative and the Narratives of Narrative Theory
    Style, 2000
    Co-Authors: Brian Richardson
    Abstract:

    Now, Narrative is everywhere. The study of Narrative continues to grow more nuanced, capacious, and extensive as it is applied to an ever greater range of fields and disciplines, appearing more prominently in areas from philosophy and law to studies of performance art and hypertexts. Nor is there any end in sight: the most important new movement in religious studies is Narrative theology, and there is even a new kind of psychological treatment called "Narrative therapy." Cognitive science offers experimental evidence for a claim that only recently was the hyperbolic boast of a practitioner of the nouveau roman: that Narrative is the basic vehicle of human knowledge. Or in the words of Mark Turner: "Narrative imagining-story--is the fundamental instrument of thought. [...] It is a literary capacity indispensable to human cognition generally" (4-5). In literary, cultural, and performance studies, Narrative Theory continues to expand, whether in the burgeoning field of life writing or in the analysis of drama or film. It is no exaggeration to say that the last ten years have seen a renaissance in Narrative Theory and analysis. Feminism, arguably the most significant intellectual force of the second half of the twentieth century, has (as should be expected) utterly and fruitfully transformed Narrative Theory and analysis in many ways. Virtually every component of or agent in the Narrative transaction has been subjected to sustained examination, including space, closure, character, narration, reader response, linearity and Narrative sequence, and even the phenomenon of Narrative itself. Some of these reconceptualizations, as Honor Wallace's article in this issue demonstrates, continue to be debated and refined. Broader-based gender criticism and queer studies steadily followed the rise of feminism, some results of which are likewise evident in this issue. Though rather less work has appeared from other marginalized or "minority" perspectives so far, these are certainly areas that can be expected to provide significant contributions in the near future. Already, several important studies are available, including work on Narrative and race, and in postcolonial studies much attention has been devoted to the construction of imperial and national Narratives. Other movements in critical Theory from Lacanian analysis to "nomadology" to new historicism have been readily applied to Narrative study and have often produced impressive results. Elsewhere in the field, a new kind of interdisciplinarity is quietly emerging, as developments in artificial-intelligence Theory, hypertext studies, the concept of "possible worlds" in analytical philosophy, and advances in cognitive science are applied to Narrative Theory. Narrative thus seems to be a kind of vortex around which other discourses orbit in ever closer proximity. Another interesting development is represented by the work of a number of younger scholars who retain the analytical rigor of traditional or "classical" approaches while moving far beyond the relatively limited theoretical parameters of structuralism to address new questions posed by postmodern texts and positionalities. These theorists (including Ruth Ronen, Tamar Yacobi, Brian McHale, Monika Fludernik, Emma Kafalenos, and Patrick O'Neill) have produced a number of groundbreaking studies that are necessitating a radical rethinking of concepts that hitherto have been foundational to Narrative Theory: the distinction between fabula and syuzhet, the nature of Narrative time, the concept of plot, the notion of voice, and the concept of "the" reader. They have applied analytical methods to irreverent postmodern Narrative practices and formulated a number of original positions. Though I suspect that some will reject the name (and perhaps the company) I am constructing for them, I will nevertheless refer to these works as gesturing toward a "Postmodern Narratology." What is Narrative? Currently, four basic approaches to the definition of Narrative are in use; we may designate these as temporal, causal, minimal, and transactional. …

Kris Helbling - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

David Herman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Graphic Narratives and Narrative Theory
    2020
    Co-Authors: Jared Gardner, David Herman
    Abstract:

    This special issue assembles an international group of scholars to explore emerging connections between comics studies and Narrative Theory—two fields which, until the last five to ten years, have developed largely in parallel, without much cross-fertilization or even interaction. The signs of this new convergence of scholarly interests and research practices are unmistakable. Recent meetings of the Modern Language Association, the American Comparative Literature Association, and the International Society for the Study of Narrative have increasingly featured papers and sessions on the intersections between scholarship on Narrative and research on comics and graphic novels. Further, recent publications have featured narratologically oriented work by analysts of graphic Narrative, including Jeanne Ewert’s and Erin McGlothlin’s path breaking studies of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Pascal Lefevre’s analysis of “Narration in Comics” in the inaugural issue of Image [&] Narrative, Teresa Bridgeman’s work on bande dessinee, and Richard Walsh’s discussion of “The Narrative Imagination across Media” in Modern Fiction Studies’ special issue on “Graphic Narrative” (2006). In Francophone scholarship, there is a longstanding tradition of studying comics using semiotic concepts, which are part of the foundation for contemporary narratology. This tradition reached something of a culmination in Thierry Groensteen’s recently translated monograph The System of Comics (discussed by Craig Fischer and Charles Hatfield in this issue). Yet for all of these incipient cross-disciplinary connections, the present issue is the first of its kind: a sustained, multi-author study organized around the question of how ideas from contemporary Narrative Theory can be brought to bear on graphic Narratives, and how, reciprocally, the richness and complexity of Narratives told in words and images might pose challenges to existing models of story. We use the term graphic Narrative Theory as a shorthand for the new, hybridized field of study in which questions of this kind are central, and which the essays gathered here collectively work to promote. In this introduction, we provide context for understanding the ongoing disciplinary reconfiguration—the continuing expansion of interest in storytelling via words and images—that has made this special

  • Narrative Theory after the second cognitive revolution
    Introduction to cognitive cultural studies, 2010
    Co-Authors: David Herman
    Abstract:

    Drawing on the explosion of academic and public interest in cognitive science in the past two decades, this volume features articles that combine literary and cultural analysis with insights from neuroscience, cognitive evolutionary psychology and anthropology, and cognitive linguistics. Lisa Zunshines introduction provides a broad overview of the field. The essays that follow are organized into four parts that explore developments in literary universals, cognitive historicism, cognitive narratology, and cognitive approaches in dialogue with other theoretical approaches, such as postcolonial studies, ecocriticism, aesthetics, and poststructuralism. Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies provides readers with grounding in several major areas of cognitive science, applies insights from cognitive science to cultural representations, and recognizes the cognitive approachs commitment to seeking common ground with existing literary-theoretical paradigms. This book is ideal for graduate courses and seminars devoted to cognitive approaches to cultural studies and literary criticism.Contributors: Mary Thomas Crane, Nancy Easterlin, David Herman, Patrick Colm Hogan, Bruce McConachie, Alan Palmer, Alan Richardson, Ellen Spolsky, G. Gabrielle Starr, Blakey Vermeule, Lisa Zunshine

  • Narrative Theory and the intentional stance
    Partial Answers, 2008
    Co-Authors: David Herman
    Abstract:

    Drawing on treatments of the problem of intentionality in fields encompassed by the umbrella discipline of cognitive science, including language Theory, psychology, and the philosophy of mind, this paper explores issues underlying recent debates about the role of intentions in Narrative contexts. To avoid entering the debate on the terms set by antiintentionalists, my analysis shifts the focus away from questions about the boundary for legitimate ascriptions of communicative intention, the tipping-point where those ascriptions become illicit projections of readerly intuitions onto an imagined authorial consciousness. Instead, I propose a two-part strategy for examining how storytelling practices are bound up with inferences about intention. The first part uses Hemingway's 1927 short story "Hills Like White Elephants" to argue that Narrative interpretation requires adopting the heuristic strategy that Daniel Dennett has characterized as "the intentional stance." In other words, it makes sense to assume that stories like Hemingway's are told for particular reasons, in the service of communicative goals about which interpreters are justified in framing at least provisional hypotheses. This first part of my analysis is tantamount to grounding stories in intentional systems . The second part, which draws on work on folk psychology (and research in the philosophy of mind more generally), describes Narrative as a means by which humans learn to take up the intentional stance in the first place, and later practice using it in the safe zone afforded by storyworlds. This part of my analysis involves grounding intentional systems in stories . Here I argue that Narrative constitutes in its own right a discipline for reading for intentions, a primordial basis for making the ascriptions of intentionality that lie at the heart of folk psychology, or everyday reasoning concerning one's own and others' minds.

  • routledge encyclopedia of Narrative Theory
    2005
    Co-Authors: David Herman, Manfred Jahn, Marielaure Ryan
    Abstract:

    actant action Theory adaptation address addresser and addressee adolescent Narrative advertisements African Narrative agency allegory alteration alterity anachrony analepsis ancient theories of Narrative (Western) ancient theories of Narrative (non-Western) anecdote animated film annals anti-Narrative apology archetypal patterns architext Artificial Intelligence and Narrative atomic and molecular Narratives attributive discourse audience Australian Aboriginal Narrative authentication author authorial Narrative situation autobiography autodiegetic narration autofiction backstory ballad Biblical Narrative Bildungsroman biography biological foundations of Narrative blog (weblog) catachresis catharsis causality character Chicago school children's stories (Narratives written for children) children's storytelling Chinese Narrative chronicle chronotope cineroman closure codes for reading cognitive narratology coincidence comics and graphic novel coming-out story commentary communication in Narrative communication studies and Narrative composite novel computational approaches to Narrative computer games and Narrative concretisation confessional Narrative conflict Constance school contextualism (in historiography) conversational storytelling counterfactual history courtroom Narrative cultural-studies approaches to Narrative cyberpunk fiction dance and Narrative deconstructive approaches to Narrative defamiliarisation deixis denarration description desire detective fiction dialogism dialogue in the novel diary didactic Narrative diegesis digital Narrative discourse analysis (Foucault) discourse analysis (linguistics) disnarrated, the distance drama and Narrative dramatic irony dramatic monologue dramatic situations dream Narrative dual-voice hypothesis dystopian fiction eco-Narratives ecriture feminine education and Narrative ekphrasis embedding emic and etic emotion and Narrative emplotment encyclopedic novel epic epiphany episode epistolary novel ergodic literature ethical turn ethnographic approaches to Narrative events and event-types evolution of Narrative forms existent experiencing-I experientiality exposition extradiegetic narrator fable fabula fairy tale family chronicle fantastic, the fantasy feminist narratology fiction, theories of Figura (Auerbach) figural narration film Narrative first-person narration focalization folklore folktale foregrounding formalism frame Theory framed Narrative free indirect discourse frequency Freytag's triangle function (Jakobson) function (Propp) gapping gaze gender studies genealogy genre fiction genre Theory in film studies genre Theory in Narrative studies gesture gossip Gothic novel grand recit graphic presentation as expressive device hagiography hermeneutics hero heterodiegetic narration heteroglossia historical novel historical present historicis historiographic metafiction historiographic narratology historiography Holocaust Narrative homodiegetic narration horizon of expectations horror Narrative humour studies and Narrative hybrid genres hybridity hypertext hypertext and hypotext (Genette) hypodiegetic Narrative identity and Narrative ideology and Narrative image and Narrative immersion implied author implied reader in medias res indeterminacy institutional Narrative intentionality interactive fiction interactivity interdisciplinary approaches to Narrative interior monologue intermediality intertextuality intradiegetic narrator irony isotopy Japanese Narrative joke journalism law and Narrative legal fiction legend leitmotif letters as Narrative life story linguistic approaches to Narrative logic of Narrative magical realism Marxist approaches to Narrative master Narrative media and Narrative mediacy medicine and Narrative medieval Narrative memory mental mapping of Narrative metafiction metahistory metalepsis metaNarrative comment metaphor metonymy micro-storie mimesis mindscreen mind-style minimal Narrative mise en abyme modality mode modernist Narrative molecular Narratives montage mood (Genette) motif multi-path Narrative multi-plot Narrative music and Narrative myth: thematic approaches myth: theoretical approaches mytheme naming in Narrative narratee narrating (Genette) narrating-I narration Narrative Narrative as argument Narrative as cognitive instrument Narrative comprehension Narrative disorders Narrative dynamics Narrative explanation Narrative in poetry Narrative intelligence Narrative levels Narrative progression Narrative psychology Narrative semantics Narrative situations Narrative speed Narrative structure Narrative techniques Narrative therapy Narrative transformation Narrative transmission Narrative turn in the humanities Narrative units Narrative universals Narrative versions Narrative, games, and play narrativisation narrativity narrator Native American Narrative natural narratology naturalisation Neo-Aristotelianism no-narrator Theory nonfiction novel nouveau roman novel, the novella nursery rhyme obituary opera oral cultures and Narrative oral history oral-formulaic Theory orality organisations and Narrative Oulipo palimpsest panfictionality parable paralepsis and paralipsis paratext parody participatory Narrative pastiche performance performativity person perspective phenomenology of Narrative philosophy and Narrative philosophical novel photographs picaresque novel pictorial narrativity plot plot types point point of attack point of view (cinematic) point of view (literary) polyphony pornographic Narrative positioning possible-worlds Theory postclassical narratology post-colonialism and Narrative postmodern Narrative postmodern rewrites poststructuralist approaches to Narrative pragmatics prison Narrative prolepsis prospective narration psychoanalysis and Narrative psychological approaches to Narrative psychological novel psychonarration queer Theory Quixotic novel quotation Theory radio Narrative reader address reader constructs readerly text, writerly text (Barthes) reader-response Theory realeme realism, theories of realist novel reality effect reception Theory reference reflector reflexivity reliability remediation repurposing retardatory devices retrospective narration rhetorical approaches to Narrative riddle ring-composition roman a clef roman a these romance romance novel Russian Formalism Sanskrit Narrative satiric Narrative scene (cinematic) schemata science and Narrative science fiction screenplay scripts and schemata secondary orality second-person narration semiotics serial form sermon short story shot showing versus telling simple forms simulation and Narrative simultaneous narration situation model sjuzhet skaz slash fiction slave Narrative soap opera sociolinguistic approaches to Narrative sociological approaches to literary Narrative sociology and Narrative soundtrack space in Narrative spatial form spectacle speech act Theory speech representation sports broadcast story arc story grammars story schemata and causal structure story-discourse distinction storyworld stream of consciousness and interior monologue structuralist narratology summary and scene surfiction surrealist Narrative suspense and surprise syllepsis tabloid Narrative tall tale Tel Aviv School of Narrative poetics Tel Quel television tellability temporal ordering tense and Narrative testimonio text text-world approach to Narrative thematic approaches to Narrative thematisation theology and Narrative third-person narration thought and consciousness representation (film) thought and consciousness representation (literature) thriller time in Narrative transfictionality transfocalization and transvocalization transgressive fictions trauma Theory travel Narrative trebling/triplication truth unnarratable, the unreliable narration urban legend utopian and dystopian fiction verisimilitude virtuality visual narrativity visualisation voice voice-over narration writerly text

  • Narrative Theory and the cognitive sciences
    Narrative Inquiry, 2001
    Co-Authors: David Herman
    Abstract:

    Research on human intelligence has postulated that studying the structure and use of stories can provide important insight into the roots of self and the nature of thinking. In that spirit, this volume focuses on Narrative as a crossroads where cognitive and social psychology, linguistics, literary Theory, and the recent hybrid called "cognitive narratology" intersect, suggesting new directions for the cognitive sciences. The ideas contained here demonstrate the importance of Narrative as a cognitive style, a genre of discourse, and a resource for literary writing and other forms of communication.

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  • Story and discourse: A bipartite model of Narrative generation in virtual worlds
    Interaction Studies, 2007
    Co-Authors: R Michael Young
    Abstract:

    In this paper, we set out a basic approach to the modeling of Narrative in interactive virtual worlds. This approach adopts a bipartite model taken from Narrative Theory, in which Narrative is composed of story and discourse . In our approach, story elements — plot and character — are defined in terms of plans that drive the dynamics of a virtual environment. Discourse elements — the Narrative’s communicative actions — are defined in terms of discourse plans whose communicative goals include conveying the story world plan’s structure. To ground the model in computational terms, we provide examples from research under way in the Liquid Narrative Group involving the design of the Mimesis system, an architecture for intelligent interactive Narrative incorporating concepts from artificial intelligence, Narrative Theory, cognitive psychology and computational linguistics.

  • Steps towards a computational Theory of interactive Narrative in virtual worlds
    Unpublished document, 2003
    Co-Authors: R Michael Young
    Abstract:

    In this paper, we set out a basic approach to the modeling of Narrative in interactive virtual worlds. This approach adopts a bipartite model taken from Narrative Theory, in which Narrative is composed of story and discourse. In our approach, story elements - plot and character - are defined in terms of plans that drive the dynamics of a virtual environment. Discourse elements - the Narrative's communicative actions - are defined in terms of discourse plans whose communicative goals include conveying the story world plan's structure. To ground the model in computational terms, we provide examples from research under way in the Liquid Narrative Group involving the design of the Mimesis system, an architecture for intelligent interactive Narrative incoroprating concepts from artificial intelligence, Narrative Theory, cognitive psychology and computational linguistics.