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William L. Randall shows how narrative psychology is integral to how we navigate everyday life. He makes the case that all people function as narrative psychologists by continually storying their lives - as well as those of others - in memory and imagination. The book weaves anecdotes of encounters its author experiences with speculations on his own life story, probing the narrative complexity of our memories, emotions, and identities, and our experience of everything from romance to rumour and history to religion.
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2013. The Many Facets of Storytelling: Global Reflections on Narrative Complexity explores a range of issues around narratives and their uses in various contexts and aspects of life. The premise for this volume is that human beings are storytelling creatures and stories or narratives are part of our daily lives and have been for centuries. From this starting point, the authors in this volume offer their explorations, reflections and findings from research and practice across disciplines and continents. Certain functions of stories are uncovered - education, social change and identity formation, for example. Some specific uses of narratives are investigated, such as in research methodology and representations in the media. Finally, other narratives are offered for themselves, as performances and (auto)biographical reflections. The chapters in this volume illustrate the many meanings of storytelling, and thus account for the layers of complexity that are inevitable when we discuss narratives.
The variety in contemporary philosophical and aesthetic thinking as well as in scientific and experimental research on complexity has not yet been fully adopted by narratology. By integrating cutting-edge approaches, this volume takes a step toward filling this gap and establishing interdisciplinary narrative research on complexity. Narrative Complexity provides a framework for a more complex and nuanced study of narrative and explores the experience of narrative complexity in terms of cognitive processing, affect, and mind and body engagement. Bringing together leading international scholars from a range of disciplines, this volume combines analytical effort and conceptual insight in order to relate more effectively our theories of narrative representation and complexities of intelligent behavior. This collection engages important questions on how narrative complexity functions as an agent of cultural evolution, how our understanding of narrative complexity can be extended in light of new research in the social sciences and humanities, how interactive media produce new types of narrative complexity, and how the role of embodiment as a factor of narrative complexity acquires prominence in cognitive science and media studies. The contributors explore narrative complexity transmitted through various semiotic channels, embedded in multiple contexts, and experienced across different media, including film, comics, music, interactive apps, audiowalks, and ambient literature.
With its plethora of illustrations, many of works published here for the first time, 'Painting Out of the Ordinary' will be compulsory reading for anyone interested in British art and society of the Romantic era.
A major new novel by the award-winning author of Good to a Fault and The Little Shadows, about two sisters who live aboard a merchant ship on a fateful voyage through the South Pacific. "Up from underneath comes a blue-black swell, a whale rising in a long arc. Kay waits, hovering in the difference between herself and the creature." What is the difference between ourselves and other humans? Between human and animal? Where does that difference persist in our minds? These are the questions Marina Endicott, one of our most beloved storytellers, explores in this sweeping, intoxicating novel set on the Morning Light, a ship from Nova Scotia sailing the South Pacific in 1912. Thea and Kay are half-sisters, separated in age by more than a decade. After the death of their stern father, head of a residential school in western Canada, the elder sister, Thea, returns east for her long-awaited marriage to the captain of the ship. She cannot abandon her younger sister, so Kay joins her, and together they embark on a life-changing voyage around the world. At the heart of The Difference is one crystallizing moment in Micronesia: Thea forms a bond with a young boy from one of the islands, and takes him as her own. The repercussions of this act reverberate through the novel--forcing Kay to examine her own assumptions about what is forgivable, and what is right. Taking inspiration from the true story of a small boy who was brought on board a Canadian sailing ship in the South Seas, Marina Endicott shows us a vanished world in all its wildness and wonder, and its darkness, prejudice, and difficulty too. She also brilliantly illuminates our own times through Kay's preoccupation with the idea of "difference"--between people, classes, continents, cultures, customs, and species. A breathtaking tour-de-force by one of our most celebrated authors, a writer with the astonishing ability to bring a past world to vivid life while revealing the moral complexity of our own.
The process of "self-organization" reveals itself in the inanimate worlds of crystals and seashells, but, as Len Fisher shows, it is also evident in living organisms, from fish to ants to human beings. Understanding the "swarm intelligence" inherent in groups can help us do everything from throw a better party to start a fad to make our interactions with others more powerful. Humorous and enlightening, The Perfect Swarm demonstrates how complexity arises from nature's simple rules and how we can use their awesome power to untangle the frustrating complexities of life in our ever more chaotic world.
Looks at how stories & imagination come together in our daily lives, influencing not only our thoughts about what we see and do, but also our contemplation of what is possible and what our limitations are.
In its brief but vigorous history, gerontology has spawned a broadening range of specializations. One of the newest of such specializations is narrative gerontology, so named for its emphasis on the biographical, or inside, dimensions of the experience of aging. Telling stories about our world, our relationships, and ourselves is fundamental to how we make meaning. Everything from our history to our religion and our memories to our emotions is linked to the tales we tell ourselves, and others, about where we have come from and where we are going. They are central to who we are. The biographical side of human life is every bit as critical to fathom as the biological side, if we seek a more balanced, positive, and optimistic perspective on what aging is about; if we would honor the dignity and complexity, the humanity and uniqueness of the lives of older persons, no matter what their health or economic standing. In this respect, a narrative approach is particularly suited to the exploration of such topics as meaning, spirituality, and wisdom, and the connections they share. This volume reflects a selection of new directions and insights, and constitutes a general broadening and deepening of narrative gerontology, exploring its implications for theory and research in the field of aging, and for the quality of life of older adults themselves. Such deepening indicates a greater refinement of thought, method, and intervention. The evolution of narrative gerontology is also evidenced by a significant increase in the number of faculty and graduate students engaged in research in this area, as well as by increasing collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and administrators in applying narrative insights to contexts such as long term care - indeed, healthcare in general. These initiatives have given rise to the phrase, "narrative care as core care".
'Gribbin takes us through the basics with his customary talent for accessibility and clarity' Sunday Times The world around us can be a complex, confusing place. Earthquakes happen without warning, stock markets fluctuate, weather forecasters seldom seem to get it right - even other people continue to baffle us. How do we make sense of it all? In fact, John Gribbin reveals, our seemingly random universe is actually built on simple laws of cause and effect that can explain why, for example, just one vehicle braking can cause a traffic jam; why wild storms result from a slight atmospheric change; even how we evolved from the most basic materials. Like a zen painting, a fractal image or the pattern on a butterfly's wings, simple elements form the bedrock of a sophisticated whole. Synthesizing chaos and complexity theory for the perplexed, Deep Simplicity brilliantly illuminates the harmony underlying our existence.