La vida como narrativa: el invisible hilo que da sentido a la historia

El objeto de este artículo es formular el concepto de identidad narrativa en Paul Ricoeur. El método empleado ha consistido en la revisión de distintos estudios elaborados por este autor, principalmente, los referidos a Tiempo y narración, L'identité narrative, y en Sí mismo como otro. Se concluye que el concepto de identidad narrativa configura el tiempo como la unidad narrativa de una vida personal y general.The purpose of this article is to formulate the concept of narrative identity in Paul Ricoeur. The method used involved the review of various studies by this author, mainly those related to Time and Narrative, L'identite narrative and Oneself as Another. It is concluded that the concept of narrative identity sets the time as the narrative unity of a personal and general lifestyle.

MARIA VALÉRIA REZENDE E O SEU VASTO MUNDO: UMA TRANSFIGURAÇÃO DO ÉPICO?

Vasto Mundo, written by Maria Valéria Rezende, is composed of several past episodes in Farinhada, a fictitious settlement in Paraíba, and was classified by the presenter and by the publisher as a storybook. However, it has a narrative unity. In addition, it has elements that grant it an epic flavor and places the book in the track of the transformations undergone by the Brazilian epic tradition.

Synthetic and Literary Readings of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah

This essay discusses synthetic and literary readings of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, with particular attention to the literary relationship between the two books, analysis of each book’s narrative unity and redactional processes, and their use of sources. A series of related topics that have received considerable scholarly attention—for example, mixed marriage, foreigners, Samari(t)ans, and identity formation—illustrate the differences between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah and how interpretation is aided by nuanced methodological approaches to complex issues. The essay concludes with discussion of how analysis of these books using utopian literary theory might create new interpretative possibilities for continued research, especially from a literary perspective.

Picture Stories: the Rise of the Photoessay in the Weimar Republic

Between the mid-1920s and the early 1930s German photojournalism experienced a profound, far-reaching upheaval. Up until this time, the illustrated mass media had favoured the reproduction of single photos, but during this brief period the photo-essay rose to prominence. Photographs and texts were integrated into a new, complex narrative unity: photoreportage. This article aims to reconstruct the historical conditions under which modern photo-reportage arose during the Weimar Republic. It will also revise certain accepted judgements about the history of photojournalism between the world wars. The development of modern photojournalism has until now been identified almost exclusively with the achievements of individual protagonists, mainly prominent photographers. Although these individuals played an important role in the production process of photoreportage, they were rarely consulted regarding editorial questions and layout. In order to better understand the economic development of photoreportage and its growth as a medium, it is necessary to examine the editorial work being done behind the scenes at the magazines and newspapers of the time. This article will therefore focus more on the development of the media and economic macrostructures at play in the emergence and growth of photo-reportage, and less on individual photographers’ contributions and photojournalistic output. It ultimately shows that the consolidation of modern photo-reportage was the result of closely connected media-related and social developments, commercial strategies and aesthetic decisions that went far beyond the agency of individuals.

Reason, Self-Transcendence, and Modernity in Hegel’s Phenomenology

Chapter 5 displays narrative unity in the “Reason chapter” of Hegel’s Phenomenology by showing how consciousness as reason becomes, and takes successive forms as, purposive activity: first, as organism, then, as end-directed human action, and finally, as human action that is its own end. The successive forms of purposive activity in the chapter are generated as attempts to resolve the overarching tension between rational consciousness’s certainty of itself as an existing individual and its certainty of being all reality. The internal criticism of the successive forms of rational consciousness in the chapter amounts to a general criticism of distinctively modern self-consciousness, particularly of its individualism. It is argued that the alleged resolution of reason’s tension in the transition at the end of the chapter to spirit, in particular, to ethical life, itself contains a tension between the realization of reason, on the one hand, and its repudiation, on the other.

Finding the Fit

Chapter 4 illustrates the theory of narration presented in the previous chapter, offering an extended analysis of an unusual narrative pattern in Red River, which violates Hollywood’s cardinal rules regarding narrative unity, probability, causality, and story logic. Disunity in this classical Hollywood narrative adds variety to our filmgoing experience; stimulates our imagination, curiosity, and creative problem-solving processes; and liberates our thinking from the burdens and limitations of good sense.

Hollywood Storytelling

Chapter 3 studies the aesthetic pleasures of Hollywood cinema’s approach to storytelling. It examines the cognitive processes at work when a film cues spectators to construct a film’s story in their minds, and it explains the ways in which Hollywood movies both facilitate and complicate the spectator’s process of story construction. The chapter offers a new theory of Hollywood storytelling aesthetics—illustrated with examples from whodunits, screwball comedies, twist films, and mysteries—that film viewers take pleasure not just in narrative unity and easy understanding, as previous scholars have argued, but also in narrative disunity and cognitive challenge. With support from experimental psychology, the chapter argues that viewers enjoy narratives that stimulate moments of free association, insight, and incongruity-resolution.