Ein Dialog mit Fallstricken. Jonas Grethlein vermutet, dass moderne Narratologie zur Analyse antiker Erzählformen vielleicht doch weniger taugt als angenommen.

oai:elpub.bib.uni-wuppertal.de:duepublico_mods_00000865Rezension zu: Jonas Grethlein: Ancient Greek Texts and Modern Narrative Theory. Towards a Critical Dialogue. Cambridge: CUP 2023, viii + 199 S. GBP 22.99. ISBN 978100933959

Kaunisnaama and Me. Affective-Interpretive Agency and Niche Construction in NHL 20 ‘Be a Pro‘ Mode

The article presents an account of discrepancies between the designed sports-game narrative and emergent narrative elements in the hockey game NHL 20 and its “Be a Pro” game mode, in which players create their own avatars with which to play the game. At the same time, character-creation decisions and the game design can severely disrupt the narrative of winning that the game privileges. These disruptions lead to frustrating player experience, but also to a more realist sport narrative of overcoming adversity than the game intends. With the example of my own avatar, Edwar Kaunisnaama, I show how the game becomes a particular affective niche that emerges when the straightforward narrative of winning fails and player-led narrativization of game events is employed. From failure emerges a surprisingly faithful and even fulfilling representation of athletic struggle, stemming from the player’s affective-interpretive action rather than game design

Maradona. Der Sportheld als Patchworkidentität

This essay examines Diego Armando Maradona as a paradigmatic figure of popular heroism. Heroes of popular culture hold a derivative status in relation to other heroic types, as they continually recombine their features in ever-changing contexts. Building on and extending narratological and cultural-theoretical approaches to heroism, I argue that Maradona’s figure represents a patchwork of heroic modes: he appears successively as triumphant athlete, martyr, deity, national savior, tragic hero, and antihero. His popularity derives from the fluid interplay between sacralization and profanation – an interplay that typifies modern media heroism. As a product of participatory popular culture, Maradona’s myth is continually rearticulated through stories, images, songs, memorabilia, and rituals that reconfigure fragments of traditional heroism. The sports hero thus emerges as a dynamic bricolage, eliciting a form of veneration that is both playful and ironic

Mythos / Sommer / Märchen. Die Fußball-WM 2006 als Hintergrund zeitgenössischer deutschsprachiger Coming of Age-Romane

In Germany, the collective memory of the 2006 World Cup is closely linked to the narrative of the ‘Sommermärchen’ (‘summer fairy tale’). This narrative combines the enthusiasm for the German team’s unexpectedly successful tournament run with heightened national self-confidence and a new desire to express patriotic feelings. Although this narrative thus adds national significance to the sport event, the World Cup was hardly addressed in fictional literary narratives for a long time. Recently, however, three coming-of-age novels set in the summer of 2006 have been published: Lars Werner’s Zwischen den Dörfern auf hundert (2023), Luca Kizer’s Pink Elephant (2024) and Christoph Kramer’s Das Leben fing im Sommer an (2025). After some general thoughts on the potential of literary sports narratives, this article discusses how these three novels refer to the World Cup summer in different ways and how they use this reference for their own narrative endeavours. Our aim is to show how these novels retell, to a certain extent, the ‘Sommermärchen’ while at the same time asserting an inherent logic of literary storytelling against the dominance of this myth

Von Boxerfrauen und Boxerinnen. Geschlechterkonzeption in der deutschsprachigen Boxsportliteratur

For much of the 20th century, women were excluded from boxing in terms of both discourse and factual history. This is closely linked to the conceptualization of the sport: Boxing was – and to some extent still is – considered a ‘male’ sport. Nevertheless, since the end of the 20th century, a cautious opening of the boxing discourse and its literature to questions of gender equality and diversity can be observed. This article begins by revealing the archive that the German-language boxing discourse draws on in its development, also with regard to its gender concepts. On this basis, in a second step, the development of (literary) gender concepts is worked out using selected examples. In a third step, the narrative and aesthetic structure of the literary sources will be examined.For much of the 20th century, women were excluded from boxing in terms of both discourse and factual history. This is closely linked to the conceptualization of the sport: Boxing was – and to some extent still is – considered a ‘male’ sport. Nevertheless, since the end of the 20th century, a cautious opening of the boxing discourse and its literature to questions of gender equality and diversity can be observed. This article begins by revealing the archive that the German-language boxing discourse draws on in its development, also with regard to its gender concepts. On this basis, in a second step, the development of (literary) gender concepts is worked out using selected examples. In a third step, the narrative and aesthetic structure of the literary sources will be examined

My Narratology. An Interview with John Pier

In this “My Narratology” interview, John Pier revisits the influences that shaped his narratological interests. He shares memories of his time as a Ph.D. scholar of Genette’s and discusses the extent to which the works of Umberto Eco, Meir Sternberg, Jan Mukařovský, and Yuri Lotman have inspired his thinking about narrative. He also presents his ideas about the future of the field of narrative studies

Sports as Emergent Storytelling. The Narrative Construction of Road Cycling

Professional road cycling is grounded in ludus (structured play), but its reception has long been shaped by narrative (stories). Focusing on the Tour de France as a paradigmatic case, this article examines how, since its late nineteenth-century inception, the sport has functioned as a narrative engine: a ludic system that generates storied interpretations. Drawing on cultural and cognitive narratology, the article argues that cycling’s narrativization arises not from predetermined storytelling but from emergent narrativity: stories produced by the sport’s ludic dynamics, the media ecologies that frame it, and the interpretive activities of commentators and fans. To show this, the article (1) traces how professional cycling historically developed in close intertwinement with the rise of new mass media and narrative mediation, and (2) identifies distinct ludic features that afford the cognitive construction of road races as narratives. It hereby shows how cycling’s ludic and medial structures have coevolved, turning athletic performance into shared storyworlds that connect the sport to experiential, social, and ideological meanings

Narrative Theory in the Squared Circle

While significant work has been done on the cultural, technological, and political aspects of professional wrestling, less attention has been paid to the specific strategies and methods by which narratives emerge within and across wrestling performances. This essay argues that professional wrestling can be fruitfully studied through several frameworks afforded by narrative theory, specifically related to the narrativization of nonnarrative sporting events; the rhetorics of fictionality; and the overlaps between performance, drama, and narrative. To make the case for professional wrestling’s place as a fruitful object of study for narrative theory, I examine how wrestling tells its stories by identifying three primary rhetorical domains: the narrative domain, or the plot structures of matches; the fictional domain, or the creation and maintenance of invented, “kayfabe” universes; and the performative domain, or the physical moves that are vehicles for storytelling as well as meaningful actions in themselves. By examining how each of these storytelling domains work, I highlight how narrative theory’s existing critical approaches can help us better understand the rhetorical complexity of both the narration and the interpretation of professional wrestling’s stories. At the same time, a detailed examination of professional wrestling’s unique formal qualities provides the opportunity to expand and enrich those approaches and, in so doing, ultimately affirms professional wrestling as a narratively complex phenomenon worthy of further study

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

This 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