Conference on Narrative '97

STORIED LIVES -- LIVED STORIES THE SEVENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NARRATIVE November 6-8, 1998 Department of Communication University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky

The Program (updated November 4, 1998)

The following papers and panels have been scheduled at this time for presentation at the conference and have been organized into panel sessions.

Friday, November 6, 1998

8:00a.m.-9:30a.m. Panel 1: Controlling Public Images Room 1

Preliminary thoughts, theories and observations concerning the concession speeches delivered by minor party candidates (who are clearly aware from the outset that their likelihood of winning is almost nil). Because these speeches are delivered to dedicated followers who have fought hard against the odds, they represent a unique type of public address.

Using Burke's theory of the "double process" of linguistic transformation form the secular domain to the theological domain, this paper theorizes that the coverage of the Clinton confessions of personal transgressions employs discourse which vacillates between two worlds: the world of secular political discourse and the world of Christian matrimony. The Clinton coverage is schematized, similarly to Burke's dramatistic analysis of St. Augustine's Confessions, as a three act play.

From the "color" writers of the last century to Jack Weller's Yesterday's People, the images of Appalachians have been at once degrading and romantic. This paper deals considers the historical development and commodification of the hillbilly image as well as the advantages derived by the dominant culture from the control of Appalachians through the stereotypes associated with the image.

9:00a.m. - 11:15a.m. Panel 2: Narrative Logic and Structure Room 1

A narrative-line can be defined as a stretch of narrative which is controlled by a single now-point. Large-scale narratives are often composed of several such narrative-lines. This paper outlines the ways in which the separate narrative-lines within a narrative can be recognized and how the transitions between such units are effected.

This paper addresses the issue of how stories of events can be conceptualized as collective stories. We distinguish between the concept of story as emplotted reportage of events and narrative structures as master frames that encase or influence story plots. We summarize our previous research showing how narrative structures influence story reports, and then seek to relate narrative structures to social institutions. This relationship is examined on the basis of a comparative study of the closings of three institutions in Detroit in the 1980's: the Fleetwood plant of General Motors, Hudson's Department Store, and several parishes of the Detroit Archdiocese. We offer a preliminary theory of how narrative structures operate in economic institutions and in religious institutions, and suggest this approach as one concrete way that research can investigate linkages between individual and collective stories.

Titanic director James Cameron says that he is "a bit mystified" by the success and passionate reaction to his movie. Hearts that are hardened to Edwardian Age love stories are puzzled by the grip of Titanic on them. Titanic has succeeded not because of a rational logic that demonstrates connections between problems and solutions. It has succeeded because of a narrative logic that connects character and action, one which consistently confirms internal aesthetic criteria and illustrates external criteria that fit with the audiences' experience.

11:30a.m. - 12:30p.m. Round Table: Methods Room 1

12:30p.m. - 1:30p.m. LUNCH Dining Room

1:30p.m. - 3:00p.m. Panel 3: Stories from Work Room 1

Organizations are inherently paradoxical. They are simultaneously rational and lyrical. They exhibit elements of structure and design, as well as on-going enactments of human interpretation and emotion. Because of a preference for linearity in much of the organizational literature, this notion of paradox is rarely explored. Our examination of the topic is grounded in data obtained from a two-year study of a factory undergoing "planned" cultural change. Through the stories told by five key managers, paradoxical themes such as fun versus control, flexibility versus order, old versus new are explored. Our results indicate that although paradoxical cultural elements may be necessary for organizational survival, introducing them into the ongoing interpretative frames of participants is not without risk. Those study participants whose storytelling indicated that they had created reality maps which incorporated the new elements survived the crises. Those whose stories indicated a refusal to incorporate the change did not.

This presentation will look at the stories that 32 attorneys told about why they were disenchanted with their careers. Some have left the law, others have not. Their stories allow for the subtle dynamics of their choices and disillusionments to be revealed. There are unique as well as universal themes.

1:30p.m. - 3:00p.m. Panel 4: Fact, Narrative, Frame, Fiction Room 2

Of recent narratives, one of the most compelling has been the narratives about a governmental conspiracy aimed at keeping the truth about aliens from public. The framing story and metonymic symbol of the conspiracy is the story of a flying saucer crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. This work will engage in what Michel Foucault termed an "archaeological analysis" of the Roswell metonym.

In this paper I chart the shifting attitude of the Hawthornian narrator toward the Antinomian Anne Huthchinson. Although he depicts her unflatteringly in "Mrs. Hutchinson" (1830), by the time of The Scarlet Letter (1850) he calls her "sainted." Realities in Hawthorne's life probably account for this evolving view.

Crime stories like the British Arthur Morrison's are considered reactionary. Critics infer that, by using the detective genre in Devil in a Blue Dress, e.g., Walter Mosley is supporting the white establishment and betraying African-Americans. However, the books should be read for themselves, not judged by their genre.

3:00p.m. - 3:30p.m. BREAK

3:30p.m. - 5:30p.m. Panel 5: Narrating the Divine Room 1

The popular Madonna tradition ( Marolatry) and its connection with the "Mother Goddess" cults of Late Antiquity are well known. Mariolatry has grown apparently irresistibly over the centuries and has dominated much of Catholic popular piety, even in supposedly "enlightened" circles- hardly confined to the ignorant masses or the superstitious. Both Judaism and Christianity have persistently suppressed the cult of the mother Goddess and even attempted to eradicate it.

This paper discusses the storied life of one individual who, having suffered from mental illness, feels that she is well now, due to her having "found Jesus." A positive self-identity is constructed in the present through narratively reworking former experiences in the light of her religious conversion.

"Seidhr" is a particular form of shamanic practice within Northern European Nature-religions. It appears in the Norse Sagas and Eddas chiefly as "women's magic" involving trance-journeying and shape-shifting. This paper focuses on men who practice seidhr today, and discusses how gendered accounts from the past constitute their identities and experiences.

This paper examines the narratives of pilgrims to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadeloupe. The authors examine these in light of communication theories on interpersonal relationships and explore insights they generate regarding the capacity to personalize the impersonal and give concrete expression to that which, by its very nature, is not concrete

5:45p.m. - 6:45p.m. Panel 6: Visual Narratives Room 1

How do we regard a commitment of story telling by artists in the production of visual work? In this presentation I string together stories, photographic slides of artwork and philosophical inquiry to ground a consideration of the generative praxis of storytelling in visual art production.

Saturday, November 8, 1998

8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. Panel 7: Funny Hour Room 1

The inappropriate use of humor may mean destruction: being murdered, being fired, the reverse of the ever good impression on the joker, or hostility from the victim. When 95% of Chinese people in Taiwan want to be(come) humorous, it is suggested that the ideal that "in humor nothing is holy" should be known to all people. Only when the joker and the listener can laugh together can the humor be called a success.

Humor is a social activity, a communicative event. But what we often fail to realize is how much we are defined not only by the jokes we tell, but by those which make us laugh. The joke not "gotten," however, proves more interesting and provides a key not only to the linguistic processing of jokes by an individual, but to the level of cultural literacy of that individual.

Mark Twain's unique humor and use of dialect contributed to a European perception of nineteenth-century Americans which still persists today. This paper examines that contribution, focusing on Twain's characterizations with dialect, humor, and linguistic foible which together conveyed a picture of "the ugly American."

9:45 a.m. -11:15 a.m. Panel 8: Experiencing Health and Illness Room 1

Chronic disease can undermine daily activities, change relationships and alter previously accepted ideas about medical treatment. Conventional medical treatment of Fibromyaligia, a chronic pain disorder of unknown etiology, currently consists of palliative medications. A narrative analysis of five Fibromyaligia patients illustrate difficulties encountered in seeking diagnosis and treatment of the disease by conventional practitioners and experiences in seeking alternative therapies.

An autobiographical text about me as a young man in relation to my girlfriend, describing how I lived through an interrupted body project. The narrative is highly corporeal; I show how an individual's own life and existence receive embodied impulses - positive and anxiety-inducing - from a significant other.

The lived stories of individuals with HIV+/AIDS provide important insights into the way they "make sense" of their life world. This research reports on a rhetorical analysis of the narratives, obtained through personal interviews conducted by one of the authors, of eight HIV+/AIDS individuals. Using the Burkean notion of symbolic redemption, the author's argue that the HIV+/AIDS persons interviewed are symbolically "re-born" through their desire to help others and a belief in the power of spiritual healing and forgiveness by suggesting that these notions manifest narrative rationality. Based on this analysis of the narratives, the authors conclude by offering practical suggestions for communication policies and procedures designed to increase the social support perceived by HIV+/AIDS persons.

11:30a.m. - 12:30p.m. Round Table: Theory Room 1

1:30 p.m.- 3:00 p.m. Panel 9: Theory and Narrative Forms Room 1

This presentation will discuss the place of Lifetelling in the history of American sociological thought and methods and outline the value of lifetelling to the discipline.

The "crisis of representation" movement triggered in the early 80;s has helped create space for experimental ways of representing the Other in the social sciences. This paper focuses on lived experience told through short stories, and on the implications of blurring social sciences with literary genres.

Viewing theory as a mode of storytelling can be a fundamental way to shift power structures and alleviate inequalities in Western culture, particularly in the United States, by subverting the dominant scientific view of theory as universal and outside ourselves, and instead seeing it as created by all, through various uses of story.

The tension between narrative ideas about respect for human subjects and the goal of advancing knowledge has not been fully acknowledged. I pose four different scenarios which, in my judgment, advance knowledge, but create ethical dilemmas which appear insuperable.

1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Panel 10: Managing Relationships Room 2

In order to deepen the dialogue about good marriage, this paper presents a feminist/archetypal approach to the intensive study of marital narratives. Beginning with a discussion of a feminist/archetypal perspective, it describes a qualitative method for studying marital narratives and concludes with an illustrative account.

This presentation will examine story construction in marriage and family therapy from a sophistic rhetorical perspective. The sophistic notions of dissoi logoi (double argument) and doxa (consensual opinion) will be highlighted in a rhetorical analysis of a marital family therapy session, in which the therapist worked to move the talk in the session from his-story to her-story to their-story.

"Our era," argues Edward Said, is the "age of the refugee, the displaced person, the exile." In the 20th Century, the United States has served as a port of solace for a myriad of politcial exiles. German-Jewish, South Vietnamese, Cuban, Russian, Salvadorian, Iranian, and Chilean exiles have all be compelled to flee from totalitarian persecution to America. It is the purpose of my research to revisit the writings of exiles through Mikhail Bakhtin's polylogical/dialogical lens and offer an alternative explanation to thedualism and contradictions found in exile discourse.

3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Panel 11 Teach Your Teachers Well Room 1

This session describes the continuing evolution of a narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) into the ways in which mentor teachers' stories about mentoring both demonstrate and facilitate their professional development. We will present both the history of our inquiry and the methodological insights we have gained to date.

The researcher discussed the results of a study which combined microethnographic techniques with life history methodology to construct narratives exploring the nature and origin teaching knowledge and behavior of three middle school teachers.

In this presentation, a researcher discusses how ethical issues of power and privacy played out in her life history research of three middle school teachers.

3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Panel 12: Analyzing Conversations Room 2

This study shows how partners can represent themselves as on organized entity through collaborative story-telling. Partners complement each other, with one relating the vocal and the other the non-vocal exchanges. They verbally and visually display that they successfully can accomplish together what is normally accomplished by one alone.

This paper demonstrates how families socialize use(s) of intimate knowledge of the other via narrative-activity representatives. Using micro-level critical discourse analysis of videotaped dinners in Caucasian-American families, I highlighted practices which draw on prior knowledge and authority to narrate another's lived in experience, with powerful mixed messages for intimacy and otherness.

4:45 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. Panel 13: Drummond on Identity Room 1

To regard identities as contingent is one way to avoid an endeavor to determine or discover 'a one true self'. A contingent approach allows the coexistence of the multiple and often conflicting narratives constituting individuals identities, the identifies of social agents positioned in relation to one another and the social institutions and social structures of which they are a part

Sunday, November 8, 1998

8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Panel 14: Investigating Gender Room 1

The aim of this study was to investigate young men's and women's narratives of their hopes and dreams of the future.

Women settlers in the Ohio valley contended with domestic duties, survival needs and a desire to uplift their communities. Life required more of them than of being isolated in their "proper sphere," and they participated significantly in their communities, demonstrating toughness, versatility and practical sense.

9:15 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. Roundtable: Ethics Room 1

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Panel 15: Sex, Power, Discourse Room 1

This paper explores the strategic use of sexuality in a nodal narrative of Hindu nationalism, and the translation of that narrative into lived events: Hindu nationalist activists' illegal demolition of a sixteenth century mosque in December 1992, and the newly elected Hindu nationalist government's nuclear tests in May 1998.

A heated debate is raging over managed health care. Central to that debate is the role of narrative testimony--stories offered by patients and others with personal experience in HMO--provided care. Those narratives have been strikingly negative. They tend to recount themes of denial of care, of cost overriding care, and far too often illness and death. Such narratives have done much to frame the current public policy debate on managed care and offer significant implications for health care and public policy overall.

The paper discusses the uses of narrative interaction as a means of managing intimacy in the context of social support groups. Reference is made to a series of ethnographic research projects in which support group participants used informal narrative discourse to constrain as well as extend boundaries of mutual knowledge and collective identification. It was found that interactions surrounding the accomplishment of support in these groups were more problematic for the participants than expected. Proposed is a theoretical model of support group interaction that suggests how support is difficult in such contexts because it necessitates the intimacy of self-disclosure among strangers. This may lead participants to 'manage' such intimacy through mechanisms that include the opening and closing of life story exchanges.

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Last updated: November 4, 1998
Questions and/or comments to Judy Stivers jsbear0@pop.uky.edu