Conference scope:
The scope of this Conference is intended to represent a wide range of topics related to the study of logic and principles of narrative production, but also to “postclassical” narratology that goes beyond it’s structuralist background focusing on the ways that narrative structures our perception of social and cultural phenomena and helps us construct meaning in general. We are in
terested in the contextuality of the modes of narrative representation, in its historicity, and in its pragmatic and artistic functions across different media. Relevant is the philosophy of action in the theory of narrative, in the narrative as communication, in cross-cultural narration, in cognitive theory of narrative acts, and the concept of performativity in narratology connected to the embodied ways of knowing. At stake is also narrative explanation in science and knowledge transfer in education, and in a whole range of other topics that transform narratological study into a plethora of different, often interdisciplinary, mixed-method research approaches. Hence, the motto of our conference is taken from Mieke Bal’s thesis on the use of narratology for cultural analysis where she defines narrative as a cultural attitude, and narratology as a perspective on culture.
“What I propose we are best off with in the age of cultural studies is a conception of narratology that implicates text and reading, subject and object, production and analysis, in the act of understanding. In other words, I advocate a narrative theory that enables the differentiation of the place of narrative in any cultural expression without privileging any medium, mode, or use; that differentiates its relative importance and the effect of the narrative (segments) on the remainder of the object as well as on the reader, listener, viewer. A theory, that is, which defines and describes narrativity, not narrative; not a genre or object but a cultural mode of expression.” (Bal, Narratology Introduction to the Theory of Narrative Second Edition, 1997: 222)
Recommended topics include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Classical and Postclassical Narratology
- Narrating Film: Narration and Reconstruction of Subjectivity
- Performing Narrative in Contemporary Performance Practice and in Daily Life
- Narrative Performance and Its Aesthetics
- Beyond Mimetic Models: Unnatural Narratology
- “Denarration” and Extreme Narration in Contemporary Drama and Fiction
- Transmedial Storytelling
- Narrative through Nonlinguistic Media
- Narrative and Digital Media
- Conversational Storytelling
- Orality and Narration
- Cyberspace Textuality
- Narration and Memory
- Documentary Storytelling and its (Un)Reliable Narrators
- Narrating Violence and Trauma
- Visual narratives; Narrative in contemporary visual practice
- The Fine Art of Storytelling and Narration in the Fine Art
- Cross-cultural Narration and Migrating Selves
- Narrative and Embodied Knowing in Dance and Performance
- Narrative and Ideology
- Political Narratives
- Cognitive Narratology: Narrative Thinking, Stories and Minds
- Narration in Science – Narration or Science?
