Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post- Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience
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Michael Basseler
Abstract
This chapter argues that we are currently witnessing a shift away from the trauma paradigm toward a new, post-trauma paradigm that manifests itself most strongly in the concept of resilience. Among the potential meanings and possibilities of trauma, resilience is being hailed as the quality that individuals, communities, and whole societies must possess in order to survive and thrive in a world of ubiquitous risk and crisis. While it draws on recent research from psychology and the social sciences, the chapter primarily aims to contribute to an understanding of the ways in which resilience - both in the individual psychological and in the social-ecological sense - is significantly constructed through narratives. Discussing various literary (e.g., Chris Cleave’s The Other Hand) and non-literary examples of resilience narratives, the chapter sketches out a cultural narratology of resilience that would enable us to come to terms with the narrative strategies and techniques as well as the cultural values, patterns, assumptions, ideologies, political agendas, and societal norms implicated in those stories.
Abstract
This chapter argues that we are currently witnessing a shift away from the trauma paradigm toward a new, post-trauma paradigm that manifests itself most strongly in the concept of resilience. Among the potential meanings and possibilities of trauma, resilience is being hailed as the quality that individuals, communities, and whole societies must possess in order to survive and thrive in a world of ubiquitous risk and crisis. While it draws on recent research from psychology and the social sciences, the chapter primarily aims to contribute to an understanding of the ways in which resilience - both in the individual psychological and in the social-ecological sense - is significantly constructed through narratives. Discussing various literary (e.g., Chris Cleave’s The Other Hand) and non-literary examples of resilience narratives, the chapter sketches out a cultural narratology of resilience that would enable us to come to terms with the narrative strategies and techniques as well as the cultural values, patterns, assumptions, ideologies, political agendas, and societal norms implicated in those stories.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- A Tale of Two Concepts: Ansgar Nünning at Sixty 1
- Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post- Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience 15
- Mind the Narratives: Towards a Cultural Narratology of Attention 37
- The End of the World (as We Know It)? – Cultural Ways of Worldmaking in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Narratives 57
- Plumbing Distant Spatiotemporal Scales: Towards an Econarratology of Planetary Memory in Narratives of the Global South 75
- Narrative Forms in the Age of the Anthropocene: Negotiating Human-Nonhuman Relations in Global South Novels 91
- Fact, Fiction, and Everything in-between: Strategies of Reader Activation in Postcolonial Graphic Narratives 109
- ‘It’s Not Our Opinion, It’s the Opinion of Our Roles’ – Fremdverstehen Revisited or: Where Foreign Language Education and Narratology Can Meet 129
- Narrative and Visual Resources of Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Children’s Books from Australia 149
- Troubling Justice: Narratives of Revenge 165
- Erin Burnett in Mali: Bardic Television and the Genealogy of Cultural Narratology 185
- New Media Narratives: Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy and Identity in the Digital Age 199
- The ‘Death’ of the Unreliable Narrator: Toward a Functional History of Narrative Unreliability 215
- Odyssean Travels: The Migration of Narrative Form (Homer – Lamb – Joyce) 241
- A European Storyteller? Collective Narration in John Berger’s Into Their Labours 269
- Brexit as Cultural Performance: Towards a Narratology of Social Drama 293
- Contributors 321
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- A Tale of Two Concepts: Ansgar Nünning at Sixty 1
- Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post- Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience 15
- Mind the Narratives: Towards a Cultural Narratology of Attention 37
- The End of the World (as We Know It)? – Cultural Ways of Worldmaking in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Narratives 57
- Plumbing Distant Spatiotemporal Scales: Towards an Econarratology of Planetary Memory in Narratives of the Global South 75
- Narrative Forms in the Age of the Anthropocene: Negotiating Human-Nonhuman Relations in Global South Novels 91
- Fact, Fiction, and Everything in-between: Strategies of Reader Activation in Postcolonial Graphic Narratives 109
- ‘It’s Not Our Opinion, It’s the Opinion of Our Roles’ – Fremdverstehen Revisited or: Where Foreign Language Education and Narratology Can Meet 129
- Narrative and Visual Resources of Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Children’s Books from Australia 149
- Troubling Justice: Narratives of Revenge 165
- Erin Burnett in Mali: Bardic Television and the Genealogy of Cultural Narratology 185
- New Media Narratives: Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy and Identity in the Digital Age 199
- The ‘Death’ of the Unreliable Narrator: Toward a Functional History of Narrative Unreliability 215
- Odyssean Travels: The Migration of Narrative Form (Homer – Lamb – Joyce) 241
- A European Storyteller? Collective Narration in John Berger’s Into Their Labours 269
- Brexit as Cultural Performance: Towards a Narratology of Social Drama 293
- Contributors 321
