@kwi_essen

AGAINST NARRATIVE SUPREMACY
– Join this year’s first KWI #colloquium on 11 January 2023 for KWI fellow Samir Sellami’s “Case against Story”.

More information: https://www.kulturwissenschaften.de/veranstaltung/the-case-against-story/

"In this talk, I will present a brief outline of my general project and a short, but close reading of Frederick Douglass’s 'Slave Narrative, Written by Himself' from 1845. Which non-narrative or even anti-narrative strategies can be traced in Douglass‘ fascinatingly complex account, a text whose author is endowed with great narrative authority and that presents itself as an ideal type of strong #narrativity And how can these insights refine our view of the text’s aesthetics and communicative roles and functions?“

#oneabstractaday (okay two!)

Today I read Gül Şen's very well-structured and insightful study of an Ottoman chronicle.

"In 'Making Sense of History: Narrativity and Literariness in the Ottoman Chronicle of Naʿīmā', Gül Şen offers the first comprehensive analysis of narrativity in the most prominent official Ottoman court chronicle. As a case study on the literalization of historical material, 'Making Sense of History' provides insights into the historiographical and literary conventions underpinning Naʿīmā’s chronicle and contributes to our understanding of elite mentalities in the early modern Ottoman world by highlighting the author’s use of key concepts such as history and time."

https://brill.com/display/title/61781?language=en

I liked this illustration of the chronicle in question, depicted on a portrait of the Ottoman sultan.

#narratology #narrativity #historiography #ottomanhistoriograpy

#oneabstractaday

Narrative Pattern and Genre in Hagiographic Life Writing: Comparative Perspectives from Asia to Europe examines so far mostly unstudied ‘non-occidental’ pre-modern hagiographic texts across disciplines with both philological and narratological approaches. Texts that recount the life of a saint have been labelled ‘hagiography’ and such works have been employed as sources for historical or literary research. However, a text-based definition of the term, not to mention a confirmation of its use on the basis of wider examinations across cultures is still wanting. This volume aims to be a step on this way: eleven contributors examine texts from Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism in the respective source languages. A comprehensive introduction outlines hagiographic life writing; an outlook develops some definitions and suggests a scheme of analysis for future research.

https://www.ebv-berlin.de/epages/15494902.mobile/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/15494902/Products/978-3-86893-102-0&Locale=en_GB #hagiography #narratology #narrativity