Abstract
The article seeks to explore sameness and difference in narrative theory by way of shifting the emphasis from the narratives themselves to the research acts we perform on narratives. It proposes a model for analyzing research acts. Applying this model to various research acts in narrative theory it shows that what it implies to look for sameness and difference within narratives will vary with the kind of research act in question. Highlighting the difference between research acts that make theoretical claims about groups of narrative and research acts that seeks to explore the meaning of individual narratives, the article is critically geared both towards theories that stress the fiction/non-fiction divide and towards theories that seek to formulate a narrative theory that encompasses narratives of all kinds. It argues for the place in narrative theory of interpretive working procedures that allow us to focus on the individual narrative, in order to grasp its potential contribution to the human conversation.
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© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Rhetorical Theory of Narrative and Contemporary Narrative Poetics: A Conversation with James Phelan
- Introduction: Sameness and difference in narratology
- The critique of the common theory of narrative fiction in narratology: Pursuing difference
- The art of narrative – narrative as art: Sameness or difference?
- Sameness, difference, or continuity?
- Beyond sameness and difference: Narrative sense-making in life and literature
- Conflicts between founder and CEO narratives: Counter-narrative, character and identification in organisational changes
- Imaginary scenarios: On the use and misuse of fiction
- Sameness and difference in narrative modes and narrative sense making: The case of Ramsey Campbell’s “The Scar”
- “I’ll teach you differences.” A meta-theoretical approach to narrative theory
- Corrigendum
- Corrigendum to: Mapped stories: Cartography, history, and the representation of time in space
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Rhetorical Theory of Narrative and Contemporary Narrative Poetics: A Conversation with James Phelan
- Introduction: Sameness and difference in narratology
- The critique of the common theory of narrative fiction in narratology: Pursuing difference
- The art of narrative – narrative as art: Sameness or difference?
- Sameness, difference, or continuity?
- Beyond sameness and difference: Narrative sense-making in life and literature
- Conflicts between founder and CEO narratives: Counter-narrative, character and identification in organisational changes
- Imaginary scenarios: On the use and misuse of fiction
- Sameness and difference in narrative modes and narrative sense making: The case of Ramsey Campbell’s “The Scar”
- “I’ll teach you differences.” A meta-theoretical approach to narrative theory
- Corrigendum
- Corrigendum to: Mapped stories: Cartography, history, and the representation of time in space