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Darstellungen von Gewalterfahrungen in Oral-History-Interviews
Full text linkVideotaped oral history interviews are used to investigate how contemporary witnesses from Nazi concentration and labor camps narrate their experiences of violence. Our analysis focuses on representations of experiences of violence that are not purely psychophysical in nature but reveal other aspects of violence. The present study understands narration as an embodied practice that is analyzed moment by moment in the framework of micro-sequential utterances. In the process of storytelling, physical-visual resources not only contribute to the local formation of meaning but also enable supra-individual insights into the communicative strategies used by contemporaneous witnesses. In the light of this volume’s question regarding the possibility of narrating violence, the consideration of all semiotic channels proves to be a profitable approach for narrative research
Narrative in der ökonomischen Sphäre. Dogmengeschichtliche und disziplinäre Rahmung am Beispiel des aktuellen Transformationsgeschehens
Full text linkThis contribution is derived from a lecture intended to advance interdisciplinary engagement between the humanities and the field of economics, with particular regard to the role of narratives in the context of current social processes of sustainability transformation. Addressing a primarily non-economist audience, the lecture – and, by extension, this article – begins with basic reflections on the self- concept of economics as a discipline, including its doctrinal and intellectual- historical underpinnings. The article proceeds from the conviction that, in view of the profound ecological and societal disruptions of our time, there exists a compelling imperative to intensify interdisciplinary cooperation. Against this backdrop, four interrelated perspectives are elaborated: The first is an examination of why orthodox economic thought has long struggled to incorporate a narrative dimension within its analytical canon. The second highlights the persistent and constitutive role of narratives in economic history. The third is a discussion on narrative phenomena from the conceptual perspective of evolutionary economics. And the fourth perspective investigates which narratives are currently competing for discursive primacy in the debate on sustainability transformation
Autofiction on Violence. The Ethics of Storytelling and the Symbolic Role of Language
Full text linkThis article explores the representation of violence in autofiction and its ethical implications. Through an analysis of Édouard Louis’s autofiction, with additional references to contemporary Russian and French authors such as Christine Angot, Egana Jabbarova, Neige Sinno, and Oksana Vasyakina, the article examines how narratives mediate trauma and construct a “victim narrator.” The study highlights the narrative tension between testimonial authenticity and ethical concerns over victimization. Special attention is given to the symbolic role of language in shaping trauma narratives, with a focus on indirect storytelling techniques. The case of History of Violence by Édouard Louis is analyzed to illustrate how autofictional narratives blur the boundaries between narrating ‘I’ and experiencing ‘I,’ reinforcing the narrator’s vulnerability. The article argues that autofiction functions both as a form of literary resistance and as a space for negotiating the ethics of storytelling in the face of violence
The Shape of Things to Come. An Interview with Marco Caracciolo
Full text linkIn this “The Shape of Things to Come” interview, Marco Caracciolo provides insights into his current project on narrative complexity and its implications. He also discusses the value of collaboration and interdisciplinarity for the future of narrative research, and empirical approaches to narrative in particular
The Role of Finiteness in Narratives
Full text linkThe article discusses the role of finiteness in sentence structure and its implications for their interpretation of narratives. Finite, infinite, and semi-finite sentence structures are analysed with regard to their ability to speak ‘about’ something. Only finite constructions allow this. The inflectional morphological markers of finiteness and their interpretation are examined in detail. For German, the inflectional morphemes -t for tense and -e for mood are identified. Their properties are summarised as abstract features for tense [±t] and mood [±e]. These two features constitute the central properties of the grammatical category ‘finiteness’: they allow the separation of the speech situation and the event situation to be expressed. If finiteness is fronted (via verb movement), it anchors the expressed proposition in a possible world at some time without dependence on matrix structures. These properties are used to derive central aspects of narratives with the help of regular grammatical devices. In a first step, these are applied to narratives in the preterite, so that – analogous to indirect speech – a narrator can be established for fictional narratives. For the morphologically unmarked present tense, an interpretation of the grammatical properties is proposed with reference to the available contexts, systematically relating central aspects of present tense narratives to the properties of finiteness
Erzählte Stadtplanung. Pieter Uyttenhove, Bart Keunen und Lieven Ameel entwickeln eine narrative Theorie des Urbanismus
Full text linkRezension zu : Pieter Uyttenhove et al.: La puissance projective. Intrigue narrative et projet urbain. Genf: Métis Presses 2021 (= vuesDensemble). 264 S. EUR 32. ISBN 978-2-940563-85-
Narrating Diaspora. The African Diaspora as a Counter-Narrative
Full text linkThis paper’s central goal is to examine the role that narratives, collective or other-wise, play in the construction of diaspora as an epistemic formation. In particular, we are interested in exploring the interplay between dominant narratives on diaspora and competing counter-narratives of diaspora. In order to do this, we resort to the concept of “imagined communities” by Benedict Anderson, arguing that the sense of a communion among members of communities is buttressed in collective narratives based on shared knowledge, values, norms, and culture. Furthermore, the paper draws on a typology developed by Carolin Gebauer and Roy Sommer which differentiates between narratives on and stories of migration. Adopting this distinction, we argue that narratives on diaspora provide a primarily etic (i.e., outsider) perspective on diasporic formations, as they emphasize group cohesion and a sense of shared group consciousness that unites members of diasporic communities. Such narratives are often found in academic scholarship and in public discourses about diaspora. By contrast, narratives of diaspora refer to discourses that provide an emic (i.e., insider) perspective, acknowledging the diversity and historicity of diasporic formations and their roles as epistemic communities. This emic perspective foregrounds historical ‘moments’ that have led to the development of the African diaspora in Germany, which articulates counter-narratives to various discourses, especially anti-Black racism
The Aesthetics of Narrative Immersion. Marie-Laure Ryan’s New Anatomy of Storyworlds
Full text linkReview of Ryan, Marie-Laure. A New Anatomy of Storyworlds: What Is, What If, As If. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2022. 248 pp. USD 89.95. ISBN 978-0-8142-1508-
The Shape of Things to Come. An Interview with Lindsay Holmgren
Full text linkIn this “Shape of Things to Come”-interview, Lindsay Holmgren highlights the role of narrative in generating and imparting knowledge. She speaks about a long-term interdisciplinary research project which investigates how young adults make sense of global challenges like climate change, war, or global pandemics through narrative. How, she asks, can narratives uncover the ways in which such experiences influence the life of this generation
Hungary’s ‘Rebalanced’ Media Ecology. Controlling the Narratives on Migration, Gender, and Europe
Full text linkHungary has the most restrictive migration policy in the European Union, and its discriminatory LGBT law and anti-European rhetoric keep alienating more liberal member states. Starting with a survey of Hungary’s ‘rebalanced’ media landscape, this essay explores the narrative dynamics of Viktor Orbán’s nationalist rhetoric. We focus on the government’s manipulative ‘national consultation’ strategy and billboard campaigns to show how new communication channels have been established which allow the government to address its national audience directly, making it largely independent of both legacy media and social media. We further argue that the “immigration and terrorism” narrative of 2015 is designed to fuel ontological insecurity and, like the recent narratives on both gender and Brussels initiated by Orbán, serves a dual purpose: it fosters the centripetal dynamics of Hungary’s nationalist narrative while fueling the centrifugal dynamics of an anti-liberal vision of Europe