Thursday 7 April 2016

Narrative Resistance

An important new theme in my research is the notion of narrative resistance and resistance to narrative. The starting point of several recent presentations and publications on this topic is that in recent decades there has been great interest in narrative fiction as a ‘giant laboratory’ (Ricoeur 1990) where experiments with estimations and evaluations, with judgments of approval and condemnation can take place. Beyond the academe, this laboratory and those who have studied it have gotten much attention from fields such as psychology, counselling, journalism and management, where insights from narratology have been used to inform professional practices, often under the catchy and trendy term ‘storytelling’

However, this interdisciplinary interest in literary fiction and its scholarly criticism has often limited itself to what one may call an Aristotelean approach of narrative, foregrounding coherence and closure as necessary elements of an ethically sound narrative (cf. for instance work by Nussbaum, Ricoeur and Taylor). In my current work I critically assess such interdisciplinary applications of narratological theory and propose that literary fiction may not only teach us the value of narrative, but also show when not to engage with it – and at times even actively resist it by exploring or going beyond the limits of traditional narrative. After all, literature also offers an alternative narrative tradition, that of the anti-mimetic ‘unnatural narrative’, that has so far been largely ignored by interdisciplinary narratologies, but that could enrich professional narrative practices. When faced with the confusion of e.g. border experiences (Meijers & Wardekker), the institutionalised exclusion of otherness or traumatic experiences, unnatural narrative might be of great value, since it shows us when coherence and closure themselves become oppressive and therefore unethical.

Beside several upcoming publications on this topic (which will be announced here and on my publications page), I have also spoken about it at the second LACE Winter School 'Uses of Narrative' at the University of Groningen last February and will present a paper on the subject at the 2016 International Conference on Narrative in Amsterdam in June.