This thesis explores the use of narrative patterns in Herodian’s History of the Roman Empire (third century AD), a work that covers in eight books the period between the death of Marcus Aurelius,... Show moreThis thesis explores the use of narrative patterns in Herodian’s History of the Roman Empire (third century AD), a work that covers in eight books the period between the death of Marcus Aurelius, in 180, and the accession of Gordian III, in 238. Drawing from narratological studies and literary theory, this dissertation provides a detailed analysis of the shape, function, and scope of the literary strategies used in the History. Aspects of Herodian’s narrative style that have often been criticized in modern scholarship (abundance of repetitions and formulae, indiscriminate use of classical models, excessive dramatization of events and characters) are re-examined through close readings of selected episodes. This is an investigatigation into the inner workings of Herodian’s storytelling and historiographical methods, in an effort to show that truth is not opposed to fiction, but both are key elements of the intellectual process inherent to the production of a historical text: through amplification, thematization, and arrangement, fiction, or invention, supplies raw facts with a density essential to any sort of deeper historical understanding. The narrativization of historical material is at the heart of this study. Show less
In Savage Embraces: James Purdy, Melodrama, and the Narration of Identity, Looi van Kessel explores the ways in which the early works of the American author James Purdy undermine the notion of a... Show moreIn Savage Embraces: James Purdy, Melodrama, and the Narration of Identity, Looi van Kessel explores the ways in which the early works of the American author James Purdy undermine the notion of a stable and true identity. Writing in the 1950s and 60s, a time in which identity politics enjoyed increased purchase in the United States, Purdy imagines characters who feel the urge to act out their sexual desires without having to conform to oppressive identity categories. In so doing, Purdy is searching for a language that shows how identity is produced through narration. To tease out this language, Looi approaches Purdy’s writing through the mode of melodrama—a mode that focuses on the aesthetic dramatization of tensions in the plot—while also bringing his work in conversation with current queer thinking. Ultimately, this dissertation attempts to bring the disparate fields of narrative theory and queer theory in a meaningful relation with one another. Show less
This article introduces a thematic issue of Religion that interrogates the religious use of fantasy and science fiction in the contemporary religious field. The overall aim of the thematic issue is... Show moreThis article introduces a thematic issue of Religion that interrogates the religious use of fantasy and science fiction in the contemporary religious field. The overall aim of the thematic issue is to identify those textual features that make it possible for a given fictional story to be used as a religious narrative, that is, to inspire belief in the supernatural beings of the story-world, and to facilitate ritual interaction with said beings. The contributions analyse the religious affordance and actual use of a wide range of texts, spanning from Harry Potter and Star Wars, over The Lord of the Rings and late 19th-century Scandinavian fantasy, to the Christian Gospels. Over the course of the thematic issue, the conclusion emerges that there exists a hierarchy of three levels of religious affordance that fictional narratives can possess: to afford belief in the supernatural beings of the story, a text must present those supernatural beings as real within the story-world; to afford ritual interaction with said beings, a text must include model rituals and inscribe the reader into the narrative; to afford belief in the historicity of the narrated events, a text must anchor the story-world in the actual world. Although we focus on the religious affordance of fictional texts, we also spell out implications for the study of religious narratives in general, and for the narrativist study of religion. Show less
Human interaction is characterised by an ongoing polyphony of perspectives and perspectives-on-perspectives. Not only do we share and coordinate our own inner life with that of the people we... Show moreHuman interaction is characterised by an ongoing polyphony of perspectives and perspectives-on-perspectives. Not only do we share and coordinate our own inner life with that of the people we interact with, but we also constantly make implicit and explicit reference to the intentional states of others who may or may not be present at the time of speaking, or who may even exist only in the imagined worlds of thought and fiction. In the cognitive sciences, this polyphony has generally been conceptualised as a series of embedded 'orders of intentionality': A thinks that B understands that C expects... (etc.). I argue that this conceptualisation stands in stark contrast to how multiple perspectives are handled in actual discourse and interaction. Based on linguistic and narratological analysis of literary texts, newspaper articles, examples from spoken discourse, and stimuli from psychological experiments investigating multiple-order intentionality in the lab, a new perspective is offered on how we deal with networks of embedded and interlinked intentional states. The findings are discussed in the light of current theories about mindreading (a.k.a. ‘theory of mind’), discussing in particular cognitive models, issues of development and learning, and scenarios of how this capacity may have evolved in our lineage. Show less
Happiness has become a container concept for positive emotions and Subjective Well-Being. In the so called ‘Happiness Turn in science’ since 2005, it is generally thought of as a condition for... Show moreHappiness has become a container concept for positive emotions and Subjective Well-Being. In the so called ‘Happiness Turn in science’ since 2005, it is generally thought of as a condition for human progress, measurable by social-economic indicators and individual reports on feelings, manageable as well as achievable for every individual, a conceptualisation that has been highly criticized within cultural studies and ethical philosophy. In literary criticism, happiness seems to be a neglected topic, although the (historical) analysis of happiness discourses and their dynamic interplay with works of fiction could provide a valuable contribution to the international research on happiness. This article contains a reading of Ivo Victoria’s Gelukkig zijn we machteloos (2011). Focusing on the intertwining of happiness and different forms of fear – of fate, of the Other – the novel challenges the dominant discourse of ‘the duty of happiness’, i.e. to happiness as a positive, universal human condition that anyone could, and should try to, obtain. Show less
Shaping Idealisms consists of eleven articles published earlier and three unpublished articles, a general introduction and a conclusion. The articles are mostly about Middle English romances and... Show moreShaping Idealisms consists of eleven articles published earlier and three unpublished articles, a general introduction and a conclusion. The articles are mostly about Middle English romances and nineteenth- and twentieth-century romance-related texts. The general theme is the tension between conventional hegemonic idealism and embedded criticism of that. The approach is an application of modern critical theories to medieval texts and modern related texts in order to analyse their subtextual premisses preliminary to other types of analysis. The texts have been treated as autonomous for the occasion. The main themes are: the difference between romance and allegory (symbolism); __dialogic texts__ and the agendas of clerkly and minstrel authors (formalism); linear, cyclic and concentric narrative structures (structuralism); characters as __actants__, and the symbolism of settings (narratology); and __diff_rance__, and 'the other' as antitype (poststructuralism). For the nineteenth-century texts the emphasis lies on medieval stories in new cultural contexts and on the perspective of hindsight (Tennyson, William Morris); for the twentieth-century texts on fantasy and the development of romance in modern times (Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lodge). Show less
Considering that early modern scholars often referred to the Middle Ages as an uncouth period of darkness and ignorance, it is surprising that humanist historians by no means neglected the era. The... Show moreConsidering that early modern scholars often referred to the Middle Ages as an uncouth period of darkness and ignorance, it is surprising that humanist historians by no means neglected the era. The central hypothesis of this book is that the ways in which historians such as Reynier Snoy, Adrianus Barlandus, Petrus Divaeus, and Janus Dousa Sr described the medieval past can be explained by the political context from which their writings originated and in which they were often directly involved. This context was marked by upheavals caused by factors such as the Habsburg centralization policy, the Reformation, and the Dutch Revolt. This book brings forward key characteristics of early modern medievalism, showing how concepts of the medieval were used as rhetorical tools, how medieval forms and ideals were appropriated, and how the classical heritage was involved in the representation of the medieval. This analysis is informed by an approach to historical writing that differs from what is common in the study of sixteenth-century historiography. Historiography is regarded not as a means to uncover the historical truth, but as narrative rhetoric. It deploys narrative techniques and intertextual allusions and plays with genre expectations in order to convey its message. Show less
Deze studie biedt een gedetailleerde analyse van vier teksten van de Franstalige Afrikaanse schrijver Tierno Monénembo (Guinee, 1947). Mijn voornaamste doel daarbij was om een bijdrage te leveren... Show moreDeze studie biedt een gedetailleerde analyse van vier teksten van de Franstalige Afrikaanse schrijver Tierno Monénembo (Guinee, 1947). Mijn voornaamste doel daarbij was om een bijdrage te leveren aan de bredere wetenschappelijke discussie omtrent de identiteitsproblematiek binnen de Franstalige Afrikaanse literatuur. Een dergelijk onderzoek is bijzonder relevant in de huidige context, omdat Franstalige Afrikaanse teksten steeds minder als één homogene groep worden gezien, en steeds vaker tot verschillende literaire categorieën worden gerekend, met name tot de nieuwe “migrantenliteratuur”. In dit kader worden vragen over de eigen identiteit, of positie, van Franstalige Afrikaanse literatuur, alsook over het belang van zo’n categorie, steeds dringender. Het tweede doel van dit onderzoek was om Franstalige Afrikaanse teksten te bestuderen vanuit een postkoloniaal perspectief. Daarmee hoopte ik een bijdrage te leveren aan de openstelling van Franse literaire studies voor de postkoloniale theorie. Uiteindelijk is gebleken dat zo’n postkoloniale benadering nieuwe inzichten brengt in het werk van Monénembo, alsook, op een breder niveau, in het Franstalige literaire systeem. Show less
When listeners talk about their listening experiences, they often refer to music as if it were a narrative. But can music actually tell a story? Can music be narrative? Traditionally, narrativity... Show moreWhen listeners talk about their listening experiences, they often refer to music as if it were a narrative. But can music actually tell a story? Can music be narrative? Traditionally, narrativity is associated with verbal and visual texts, and the mere possibility of musical narrativity is highly debated. In this study, Vincent Meelberg demonstrates that music can indeed be narrative, and that the study of musical narrativity can be very productive. Moreover, Meelberg even makes a stronger claim by contending that contemporary music, too, can be narrative. More specifically, Meelberg suggests considering contemporary musical narratives as metanarratives, i.e. narratives that tell the story of the process of narrativization Show less
