DIEGESIS

Conspiracy Theories – Conspiracy Narratives

Michael Butter — 2021-12-16

In this essay Michael Butter discusses the relation between conspiracy theories and conspiracy narratives.

About This Issue

Editors / Herausgeber*innen — 2021-12-16

We are happy to present a new issue of DIEGESIS. After 17 issues and almost ten years of publishing, our journal has undergone substantial changes under the hood, by migrating to a new content management system (OJS 3, for those of you interested in technology). This ensures that DIEGESIS will offer, in years to come, a reliable service to a vibrant community of scholars and scientists working on all aspects of narrative. We will retain our Gold Standard open access policy without pay-walls or sign-up procedures for readers. Publishing will also remain free of charge for authors, whose contributions will be archived, as in the past, by the German National Library.

We established the journal in 2012, with a special issue titled “Narratology in the 21^st Century. An Interdisciplinary Review.” In that issue we, the editors of DIEGESIS, offered our own thoughts on the benefits, goals, projects, and futures of narrative. In this anniversary issue, simply titled “Why Narratology?”, we once again reflect on the state of the art and future avenues for narrative research.

Matei Chihaia’s contribution examines the journalistic coverage of the Mexican region of Sinaloa in DIE ZEIT for eventfulness and tellability with the help of computational narratology. Sandra Heinen investigates postcolonial narratology and suggests that it move beyond its original aim and provide postcolonial research questions with a narratological footing. Katharina Rennhak’s article focuses on another contextualist approach, as she discusses possible reasons for the neglect of the phenomenon of ‘women writing men’ by both feminist literary critics and narratologists. Arguing for an integration of narratological and gender-oriented approaches, she charts the field of 21^st-century novels by Irish women writers which feature male protagonists and narratively reconstruct masculinities. Michael Scheffel’s contribution contends that current cognitive-psychologically accentuated narratological approaches are not (yet) interested in the fact that narratives are not only created in the minds of readers, but also on paper and in the minds of the subjects who produce them. Using the example of the genesis of Arthur Schnitzler’s narrative fiction, he develops perspectives of a genetic narratology. Roy Sommer revisits the concept of narrative dynamics to include transtextual and transactional dimensions; this theoretical contribution to contextual poetics sheds new light on dialogical constellations in narrative fiction, e.g. the interdependencies between Karl Ove Knausgård’s ‘slow’ autofiction and the autobiographical novel October Child (2021) by Linda Boström Knausgård.

This anniversary issue introduces two new categories. Our familiar interview section, “My Narratology,” will from now on be called, with a nod to H.G. Wells, “The Shape of Things to Come.” The new interview will focus on new research projects which seek to make an impact and advance the field in new directions. The new series begins with an introduction of an exciting collaborative project headed by Maria Mäkelä at the University of Tampere, Finland. “Instrumental Narratives” focuses on the limits of storytelling and proposes what Mäkelä and her team call a “story-critical narrative theory.” If you wish to see your project featured here, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the editorial team: diegesis@uni-wuppertal.de.

The second new section, titled “Hands-On Narratology,” is brand new, indeed. Here, authors comment briefly on selected phenomena from the world of narrative, or narratives. Essays in this section discuss and demonstrate the relevance of narratological approaches for current public debates. Authors offer a provocative take on a familiar problem or on a topical issue, or they comment on a new kind of narrative. In this issue, Michael Butter reflects on the current trend to speak of ‘conspiracy narratives’ rather than use the established term ‘conspiracy theory,’ and argues against the rebranding of this phenomenon.

As usual, this issue is rounded off with two book reviews: A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-First Century: Theorizing Unruly Narratives by Brian Richardson (2019) and Erzählte Zeiten im Roman der frühen Neuzeit. Eine historische Narratologie der Zeit by Lukas Werner (2018).

Finally, we wish to thank our in-house partner, the library of the University of Wuppertal, for providing the technological assistance for DIEGESIS; and our editorial team for all the work they invest to make DIEGESIS happen and to keep it going. Our thanks also go to our readers and contributors: welcome back, we hope you enjoy this new issue. Happy browsing!

Sinaloa in der ZEIT. Computergestützte Analyse von Ereignishaftigkeit und Erzählwürdigkeit in einem Korpus journalistischer Erzählungen

Matei Chihaia — 2021-12-16

Annotation in CATMA helps measure the eventfulness and tellability of narrative within a given corpus. To analyze the narrations that mention the name of Sinaloa, Mexico, across 25 years’ issues of a German newspaper, DIE ZEIT, I follow the annotation protocol established by Vauth et al. (2021). The protocol yields a numeric index of eventfulness that can be used for the comparison of narrative texts within the corpus. The distribution of event types throughout the texts can also be used in order to represent styles of narration as a graph. In addition to this, plot tellability qua literariness can be quantified through the kind and distribution of transtextual and plot-relevant metapoetic cues. This twofold model of assessing eventfulness and tellability may seem simplistic in comparison to state of the art artificial intelligence research on event narration and plot understanding; however, this is offset by the promising advantages of integrating hermeneutic annotation – as an adequate implementation of human reading habits – with linguistic categories that can be used in machine learning models.

On Postcolonial Narratology and Reading Postcolonial Literature Narratologically

Sandra Heinen — 2021-12-16

The article discusses this special issue’s leading question ‘Why narratology?’ with regard to a specific group of texts, for which a separate version of narratological inquiry has been proposed as part of the diversification of narratologies: post- colonial literature. Previous outlines of a postcolonial narratology are reviewed and the fate of the project of postcolonial narratology is assessed, before an alternative take on reading postcolonial literatures narratologically is suggested.

At the Intersection of Gender Studies and Narratology. Contemporary Irish Women Writing Men

Katharina Rennhak — 2021-12-16

The chapter reacts to this special issue’s leading question “Why narratology?” by reflecting on a narrative phenomenon that has been neglected by literary and cultural criticism: that of ‘women writing men.’ A number of reasons for the seeming reluctance to approach this question, which suggests itself as a fruitful object of study for both narratologists and gender-oriented literary critics, are discussed. Arguing for an integration of narratological and gender-oriented approaches in the context of the &lsquonew formalist’ turn, the chapter charts narrative constructions of masculinity in recent novels by Irish women writers. This corpus is approached through a discourse- (rather than story-)oriented lens. Using the two currently dominant ways of &lsquoperspectivising’ fictional worlds, the chapter first concentrates on women writers’ novels that feature male first-person narrators and in doing so deconstruct and reconstruct prevalent masculinities (Sara Baume’s Spill Simmer Falter Wither, Claire Kilroy’s The Devil I Know, and Caoilinn Hughes’ The Wild Laughter). It then goes on to analyse heterodiegetic novels that integrate male and female perspectives via multiple focalisation and mark their male protagonists’ views, emotions, and actions as decisive for any renegotiation of the concept of the Irish family (Anne Enright’s The Green Road, Helen Cullen’s The Dazzling Truth, and Ruth Gilligan’s The Butchers).

Wege zu einer genetischen Narratologie oder: Von der Geburt und dem Abenteuer der Geschichten am Beispiel von Werkgenesen des Autors Arthur Schnitzler

Michael Scheffel — 2021-12-16

Over the course of the so-called narrative turn, narrative research has fundamentally expanded its scope and now also shows an interest in, among other things, the pragmatic context of narratives. As a result of the ‘cognitive turn’, narratologists have mainly explored the ways in which narratives are perceived and received.

Yet every narrative also involves a production process, a crucial dynamic which should also be of narratological interest. This article draws attention to this particular gap in narrative research and tries to reduce it by examining an exemplary case as well as proposing some theoretical considerations towards a genetic narratology. Drawing on the formalist-structuralist model of ‘narrative constitution’ and the phenomenological concept of a ‘narrative hermeneutics,’ it introduces a new methodological approach which seeks to combine research questions and terminologies from the fields of edition philology and narrative theory. The approach will be illustrated with reference to the author Arthur Schnitzler, by investigating his working methods as well as the genesis of his narrative works over several decades. In this context the article particularly focuses on the ‘monologue novella’ Fräulein Else, which – albeit completed in the 1920’s and published in 1924 – probably traces back to a note from the 1890’s.

The Knausgård Universe: Contextual Narratology and Slow Narrative Dynamics

Roy Sommer — 2021-12-16

The current debate on slowness and narrative offers an ideal opportunity to reconsider the structuralist aversion to pragmatics and context. The article argues that a well-constrained approach to context is possible if we revise the concept of narrative dynamics to include transtextual and transactional dimensions; this theoretical contribution to contextual poetics sheds new light on dialogical constellations in narrative fiction, e.g. the interdependencies between Karl Ove Knausgård’s ‘slow’ autofiction and the autobiographical novel October Child (2021) by Linda Boström Knausgård.

The Shape of Things to Come. An Interview with Maria Mäkelä

Maria Mäkelä — 2021-12-16

In this interview, Maria Mäkelä provides her personal definition of narrative research, introduces her current research projects, and speculates about the future of narrative research.

Naturalizing the Loki Principle. Brian Richardson Explores the Narrative Dynamics of Experimental Fiction. [Brian Richardson: A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-First Century. Theorizing Unruly Narratives. Columbus, OH 2019]

Carolin Gebauer — 2021-12-16

Review of: Brian Richardson: A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-First Century. Theorizing Unruly Narratives. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press 2019 (= Theory and Interpretation of Narrative Series). 218 pp. USD 69.95. ISBN 978-0-8142- 1412-1

Strukturen der Zeit, als diese aus den Fugen geriet [Lukas Werner: Erzählte Zeiten im Roman der Frühen Neuzeit. Eine historische Narratologie der Zeit. Berlin / Boston, MA: de Gruyter 2018]

Iris Roebling-Grau — 2021-12-16

Review of:

Lukas Werner: Erzählte Zeiten im Roman der Frühen Neuzeit. Eine historische Narratologie der Zeit. Berlin / Boston, MA: de Gruyter 2018 (= Narratologia Bd. 62). 416 S. EUR 99,95. ISBN 978-3-11-056553-9