Narrative in der ökonomischen Sphäre. Dogmengeschichtliche und disziplinäre Rahmung am Beispiel des aktuellen Transformationsgeschehens

oai:elpub.bib.uni-wuppertal.de:duepublico_mods_00000851This contribution is derived from a lecture intended to advance interdisciplinary engagement between the humanities and the field of economics, with particular regard to the role of narratives in the context of current social processes of sustainability transformation. Addressing a primarily non-economist audience, the lecture – and, by extension, this article – begins with basic reflections on the self- concept of economics as a discipline, including its doctrinal and intellectual- historical underpinnings. The article proceeds from the conviction that, in view of the profound ecological and societal disruptions of our time, there exists a compelling imperative to intensify interdisciplinary cooperation. Against this backdrop, four interrelated perspectives are elaborated: The first is an examination of why orthodox economic thought has long struggled to incorporate a narrative dimension within its analytical canon. The second highlights the persistent and constitutive role of narratives in economic history. The third is a discussion on narrative phenomena from the conceptual perspective of evolutionary economics. And the fourth perspective investigates which narratives are currently competing for discursive primacy in the debate on sustainability transformation

Autofiction on Violence. The Ethics of Storytelling and the Symbolic Role of Language

This article explores the representation of violence in autofiction and its ethical implications. Through an analysis of Édouard Louis’s autofiction, with additional references to contemporary Russian and French authors such as Christine Angot, Egana Jabbarova, Neige Sinno, and Oksana Vasyakina, the article examines how narratives mediate trauma and construct a “victim narrator.” The study highlights the narrative tension between testimonial authenticity and ethical concerns over victimization. Special attention is given to the symbolic role of language in shaping trauma narratives, with a focus on indirect storytelling techniques. The case of History of Violence by Édouard Louis is analyzed to illustrate how autofictional narratives blur the boundaries between narrating ‘I’ and experiencing ‘I,’ reinforcing the narrator’s vulnerability. The article argues that autofiction functions both as a form of literary resistance and as a space for negotiating the ethics of storytelling in the face of violence

Narrative Escalation and the Dynamics of Violence in Post-Reunification German Literature

The article aims to show how escalation narratives in contemporary German literature dissect the dynamics of violence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by dealing with outbreaks of violence and making visible hidden forms of violence, both in the modes of latency and drastic depiction. Whereas in Nullerjahre (2022) by Hendrik Bolz and Wir waren wie Brüder (2022) by Daniel Schulz the post-reunification period is reflected through different modes of escalation, depicting publicly visible violence, Anne Rabe’s novel Die Möglichkeit von Glück (2023) shifts this setting to the family level, where different forms of violence appear to be a consequence of the structural violence inherent in the authoritarian system of the GDR. Antje Rávik Strubel’s novel Blaue Frau (2021) addresses similar issues but focuses on the political situation in Europe, describing a young woman’s journey from East to West, filled with exploitation and assault. All texts expose narratives of violent (but sometimes invisible) excesses in the post-reunification period in relating them both to past, but in parts still intact forms of structural and symbolic violence that remain visible as traces – or return in the mode of direct, physical violence

The Shape of Things to Come. An Interview with Marco Caracciolo

In this “The Shape of Things to Come” interview, Marco Caracciolo provides insights into his current project on narrative complexity and its implications. He also discusses the value of collaboration and interdisciplinarity for the future of narrative research, and empirical approaches to narrative in particular

Darstellungen von Gewalterfahrungen in Oral-History-Interviews

Videotaped oral history interviews are used to investigate how contemporary witnesses from Nazi concentration and labor camps narrate their experiences of violence. Our analysis focuses on representations of experiences of violence that are not purely psychophysical in nature but reveal other aspects of violence. The present study understands narration as an embodied practice that is analyzed moment by moment in the framework of micro-sequential utterances. In the process of storytelling, physical-visual resources not only contribute to the local formation of meaning but also enable supra-individual insights into the communicative strategies used by contemporaneous witnesses. In the light of this volume’s question regarding the possibility of narrating violence, the consideration of all semiotic channels proves to be a profitable approach for narrative research

Disruptive Narratives. A New Research Program

In this article, we seek to delineate a new research program that involves the analysis of disruptive narratives. The term covers conspiracy narratives, stories spread in the context of disinformation campaigns, and populist discourse, but also radical challenges to our life styles. Some of these stories propose largely invented (or fictive) realities, while others are still clearly fact-based. What all disruptive narratives have in common is their potential to shock: they try to present radically alternative events and thus urge their recipients to challenge established authorities. For us ‘disruption’ is a descriptive and thus ethically neutral term that merely signals an interest in disturbing a given political order. Such stories deserve greater attention because they play an ever more important role in the public spheres in Western countries such as Britain, Germany, or the US. We will thus address questions such as: How are these narratives structured? What about the interplay between the content and the form? What are these stories trying to achieve? What about their ideological ramifications or political consequences? Who spreads them? Who feels attracted by them

Diskursive Wortlosigkeit. Michael Niehaus erkundet die spezifischen Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten eines Erzählens ohne Worte in verschiedenen Medien

Rezension zu Michael Niehaus: Erzählen ohne Worte. Eine Erkundung. Hagen: Hagen UP/ Georg Olms Verlag 2022 (= Schriften zur Literatur- und Medienwissenschaft, Bd.5), 439 S. EUR 39,80. ISBN 9783487162003

On the Significance of Digital Epitexts. Virginia Pignagnoli Examines how Digital Epitexts Shape Post-Postmodernist Narrative Poetics

Rezension zu: Virginia Pignagnoli: Post-Postmodernist Fiction and the Rise of Digital Epitexts. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press, 2023 (= Theory and Interpretation of Narrative Series) 158 pp. USD 79.95. ISBN 978-0-8142-1542-

Narration und Negation. Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Textbeobachtung und Interpretation am Beispiel der Fokalisierungsfunktion negativer Deixis in Theodor Storms Immensee (1851)

This article investigates the interplay between narration and negation. The first section examines various frameworks for conceptualizing the relationship, addressing not only seminal contributions from the structuralist period (e.g., Wolfgang Iser, Karlheinz Stierle) but also more recent conceptual work on narrative refusal (Robyn Warhol) and negative deixis (Jan Knobloch). Adding to this, the article incorporates insights from linguistic studies on negation. Using parameters such as intensity, scope, modality, and responsiveness, the negation repertoire within a text can be systematically characterized. By posing the heuristic question Who (or what) can negate whom (or what), with what scope and intensity?, this analytical approach can be linked to narratological theory. The utility of this framework is demonstrated through an analysis of Theodor Storm's paradigmatic novella Immensee (1851) which highlights the specific focalizational functions of negation in literary texts and also exemplifies how exactly negation intersects with narrative gaps