Concepts of narrative, founding violence, and multiculturalism in the Americas: Greimas, Girard, and Kymlicka

Patrick Imbert

doi:10.1515/sem-2015-0142

Article

Concepts of narrative, founding violence, and multiculturalism in the Americas: Greimas, Girard, and Kymlicka

Patrick Imbert

Published/Copyright: February 13, 2019

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From the journal Semiotica Volume 2019 Issue 227

Abstract

Greimas’s conception of narrative is based on a causality linked to basic paradigms establishing the deep meaning of a story; Girard’s conception of narrative is rooted in a universal mimetic desire which leads the “lynchers” to justify exclusion by producing mythical narratives demonstrating that the excluded was evil; Kymlicka’s perspective on cultural relationships is based on the necessity to create a socio-political framework helping people to cooperate in order to invent a better world. These three important thinkers analyze stories people tell themselves or believe in in order to organize a controlled and safer way of life for themselves. We compare the theoretical perspectives of these three thinkers in order to understand in what way contemporary writers of the Americas structure their narratives and explore encounters while aiming at fostering a vision of the world oriented towards multi and transculturalism.

Keywords: narrative; transculturalism; literature; Americas

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Published Online: 2019-02-13

Published in Print: 2019-03-05

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2015-0142

Keywords for this article

narrative; transculturalism; literature; Americas