This article was downloaded by: [Laurentian University]On: 08 December 2014, At: 23:09Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Review of CommunicationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rroc20

Narrative Theory and Criticism: AnOverview Toward Clusters and EmpathyRobin P. Clair, Stephanie Carlo, Chervin Lam, John Nussman,Canek Phillips, Virginia Sánchez, Elaine Schnabel & Liliya YakovaPublished online: 09 Jun 2014.

To cite this article: Robin P. Clair, Stephanie Carlo, Chervin Lam, John Nussman, Canek Phillips,Virginia Sánchez, Elaine Schnabel & Liliya Yakova (2014) Narrative Theory and Criticism:An Overview Toward Clusters and Empathy, Review of Communication, 14:1, 1-18, DOI:10.1080/15358593.2014.925960

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2014.925960

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Narrative Theory and Criticism: AnOverview Toward Clusters and EmpathyRobin P. Clair, Stephanie Carlo, Chervin Lam,John Nussman, Canek Phillips, Virginia Sánchez,Elaine Schnabel & Liliya Yakova

In this article, we overview the contributions to narrative theory and criticism acrossfour subdisciplines of communication: rhetoric, organizational communication, healthcommunication and cultural studies. We note that much of this work has focused onstories as individual artifacts. We propose that future work on narrative shouldhighlight the complexity of narrative by addressing narrative clusters. Furthermore, aninterpretive method of analysis that relies on extended empathy is suggested for futureresearch, along with the development of a theory of narrative empathy. In short, weencourage researchers to explore, interpret and assess narrative and narrative clustersby way of extended empathy, a goal for expanding horizons toward understanding selfand others.

Keywords: Narrative; narrative clusters; narrative empathy; rhetoric; organizationalcommunication; health communication; cultural studies

Over the last 100 years, the speech communication discipline has grown andblossomed into several distinct and yet related subfields. Several of the articles in thisspecial journal focus on the distinct historical evolution of those subdisciplines. Incontrast, the current article focuses on one form of communication—narrativecommunication, which has been theoretically developed and pragmatically appliedacross various communication subdisciplines. Specifically, we provide an all-too-briefoverview of the development of narrative theory and practice within the commun-ication field, thus we offer our apologies to those who have contributed to narrativetheory yet have been omitted from this discussion due to space constraints. For thesame reason, we focus our efforts on only four subfields: rhetoric, organizational

Robin P. Clair, Stephanie Carlo, Chervin Lam, John Nussman, Canek Phillips, Virginia Sánchez, Elaine Schnabel,and Liliya Yakova are at Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University. Correspondence to: Robin P.Clair, Department of Communication, Purdue University, BRNG 2268, 100 N. University Street, West Lafayette,IN 47907, U.S.A. Email: rpclair@purdue.edu

The Review of CommunicationVol. 14, No. 1, January 2014, pp. 1–18

ISSN 1535-8593 (online) © 2014 National Communication Associationhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2014.925960

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

communication, health communication, and cultural studies. In the final section ofthis paper, we offer a theoretical and analytical contribution that extends currenttheory and critique.

The history of narrative might be traced to the origin of language, to the firstsymbolic sound or gesture.1 Yet exploring such an extensive history is far beyond thescope of this article and would require a lengthy review of oral storytelling, which canbe found elsewhere.2 Thus, we do not mean to give short shrift to early narrativecontributions which range from the Paleolithic cave paintings of Lascaux to the 2,500year old epic poetry of Mesopotamia (e.g., Gilgamesh). Suffice to say, it would seemthat stories have existed since the beginning of human time, and although all aredeserving of attention, to the best of our knowledge, it was not until the third centuryBCE that scholars undertook a philosophical debate concerning the power and valueof narrative. These debates are considered metadiscourses (i.e., theory), whichcontinue to influence rhetorical scholars of the 21st century. Thus, we begin withPlato and Aristotle’s conceptualization of narrative and argument over the value ofnarrative before moving to a contemporary history.

Narrative Theory: The Rhetorical Foundation

In Plato’s dialogue titled Ion, Ion claims that Homer’s epic poetry provides philo-sophical truth and thus Ion, as a rhapsodist, spreads truth to the audiences who cometo hear him.3 Plato, through the character of Socrates argues against this ideaclaiming that art is mere imitation of truth and can never hold the same value asreality. Indeed, he contended that epic poetry may actually harbor ill effects for thelistener of such tales. Aristotle challenged these concerns and addressed additionalissues on the topic of art and narrative with emphasis on tragedy in the Poetics.4 Artcritics considered Aristotle’s response “the first work in the history of the subject totreat, in one form or another, virtually every problem with which the theory of arthas subsequently been concerned.”5 Aristotle expounded upon both theory andpractice of narrative as he held it in high esteem and following the Greek traditionencouraged excellence in its use. His work was followed by Longinus’s detailed essaythat advised writers how to achieve narrative perfection.6 In short, the early Greeksinitiated metadiscussions of narrative.

From this formidable beginning we leap to the contemporary contributions byrhetorical scholars, but before doing so we remind the reader that currentcommunication scholars were heavily influenced by their predecessors, includingnot only those from the classical period, but also from the modern era. For instance,Friedrich Nietzsche, like Aristotle, challenged the Socratic view of the world as bestdetermined solely through rational analysis. He drew from earlier Greek work byrelating his idea on narrative to dialectic. Nietzsche proposed that the dialecticaltension between Apollonian (reason) and Dionysian (art) required a simultaneouscoupling in order to understand human existence. Furthermore, he felt that myth,especially through the classic Greek tragedies, was the means to affirming human

2 R. P. Clair et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

existence, a notion that went well beyond either Plato or Aristotle’s contributions.7 Inthis sense, narrative gives meaning to our lives.

Nietzsche’s influence was felt far and wide and was carried into the 20th centuryby philosophers, historians, and literary and rhetorical critics. Kenneth Burke, forexample, addressed the power of narrative form through literary criticism and wasinfluenced by Nietzsche.8 In addition, existentialists of the mid and later 20thcentury, who were also influenced by Nietzsche, offered contributions to the theoryof discourse that elevated narrative. Existentialists, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, AlbertCamus, and Simone de Beauvoir, argued that narratives in the form of plays, novels,and memoirs are a powerful way to express life as well as philosophical and politicaltheory.9 The postmodernists, who followed the existentialists, portrayed narrative ina metaphorical way, speaking of societies as guided by grand narratives10 anddiscourses of knowledge and power.11 These philosophical and rhetorical contribu-tions influenced writers from several fields within the humanities.

In the 1980s, two special journal editions were published on the topic of narrative.Each journal highlighted the theories of experts in various areas of the humanitiesbeginning with Critical Inquiry’s 1980 volume titled On Narrative and concluding withthe Journal of Communication’s special issue in 1985.12 On Narrative featured suchwell-known scholars as Hayden White, Roy Schafer, Jaques Derrida, Frank Kermode,Nelson Goodman, Victor Turner, Paul Ricoeur, and Ursala Le Guin, who covered suchareas as narrative history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and literature. In1985, the Journal of Communication published a special edition titled Homo Narrans:Story-telling in Mass Culture and Everyday Life, which featured a debate centered onWalter Fisher’s proposed narrative paradigm. The special issue drew from varioussubfields of communication, but primarily relied on the writings of rhetoricians.13

Fisher’s first article on the topic proposed that narration could be consideredthe foundation of human communication.14 He argued that reasoning was notnecessarily reliant on logical lines of argument but rather could be achieved through“all sorts of symbolic action,” most notably through narrative.15 Fisher gave credit toAlasdair MacIntyre as the first to specifically note that “man [sic] is . . . essentially astory-telling animal”16 who “enacted dramatic narrative” which is the “essential genrefor the characterization of human action.”17 Fisher expounded and expanded onMacIntyre’s work by laying the groundwork for a narrative paradigm—a way ofunderstanding human experience through a “narrative context: history, culture,biography, and character.”18 The paradigm asserted that narrative is “germane tosocial and political life,” not just the moral life as suggested by earlier scholars.19

Most importantly, Fisher agreed with and gave credit to the key figures whoproposed that people are symbol-using animals20 as well as the contributors of the1980 Critical Inquiry special edition mentioned earlier in this essay. Later, Fisherprovided a more extensive list of philosophers who had influenced his work, and hefurther elaborated on the paradigm.21

For Fisher, like others before him, narration could be considered the mastermetaphor of human experience. As a master metaphor, narration subsumes the otherproposed models of human rationality. Relying on Kenneth Burke, Fisher noted that

Narrative Theory and Criticism 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

stories give meaning to experience, draw people together into communities that“sanction” their stories and position them in history as a part of humanity.22

According to Fisher, people are storytellers who make decisions based on “goodreasons” that are derived from the narratives people engage by way of historical/cultural and personal backgrounds.23 Narratives are subjected to tests of “narrativeprobability, that is, what constitutes a coherent story” and “narrative fidelity” that is,what makes a story “ring true.”24 Unlike formal logic which must be taught,narrative, according to Fisher, is emic; children are socialized at such an early ageinto the use of narrative and narrative is so pervasive in society that it goes withoutnotice. Following the conceptualization and explanation of narrative as a paradigm,Fisher undertook a case study.

Drawing from Angel Medina, who asserted “human reason is narrative,”25 Fisherexplored the public moral argument over nuclear weapons via the narrative approachand concluded that had the rational world paradigm been used to decide the debate,the general public would have been dismissed as not having the technical expertise toengage the issue. However, the narrative paradigm gives them a place in the debateand the story.26 Instead of being ignored, the general public judges the experts’ storieson the grounds of probability and fidelity. Thus, the expert “becomes subject to thedemands of narrative rationality”27 and that rationality allows people to join “thequest for the good life.”28

As rhetoricians are wont to do, debates over the legitimacy of the narrativeparadigm followed,29 which in turn gave rise to additional intriguing articles thataddressed the ideological underpinnings of narrative.30 For instance, W. LanceBennett and Murray Edelman argued that stock political plots all too often over-shadow the narrative of possibilities that could change society.31 W. Lance Haynesaddressed Ernest Bormann’s notion of fantasy theme analysis in light of how thenarrative brings a community together.32 Haynes also called upon Burke’s work topoint out that often the community is brought together at the expense of a scapegoat,an outsider who becomes the enemy.33 William Kirkwood proposed that narrativeholds the potential to help individuals escape beyond their narrow confines andargued that the narrative conceptualization of fidelity and plausibility needed to beexpanded, suggesting narratives that stir the imagination and offer a rhetoric ofpossibilities are the way to the “good life.”34

Albeit a few rhetoricians argued in favor of Fisher’s broad conceptualization ofnarrative, most continued to explore narrative as a rhetorical form found withinspeeches.35 Nevertheless, the groundwork had been laid for rhetoricians to challenge,refine, and engage with narrative theory. Although certainly important, rhetoricianswere not the only communication scholars who had been influenced by the linguisticturn and contributed to the narrative movement.

Narrative Theory: The Organizational Communication Contribution

In the early 1980s, organizational communication scholars encouraged both adiscursive and a political understanding of the construction of reality.36 In 1987,

4 R. P. Clair et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Dennis Mumby published an article on the political function of narrative in which heused critical interpretive methods to address an organizational story. At the surfacelevel the story was intended to socialize individuals into IBM, in part by character-izing the CEO as a hero, but at the deeper level the story worked to hide ideologicalmessages of control and oppression.37 Influenced by Mumby and concerned by thegrowing body of literature that depicted narrative as the means to create a sharedcommunity, Robin Clair provided the concept of sequestered stories, which proposedthat marginalized individuals were silenced by the dominant paradigm.38 Clair drewfrom philosophy, organizational studies, and rhetoric to provide a framework ofhegemonic exploitation of women. The study focused on sexual harassment, anunderstudied topic at the time. Perhaps most importantly to the communicationfield, Clair provided the actual narratives of the marginalized individuals as alegitimate way of knowing and achieved this through the narrative methodology sheemployed.

Inspired by Clair’s work and driven by sexual politics of the day, the Journal ofApplied Communication Research solicited stories of sexual harassment.39 This clearlyexemplified a new way of doing scholarship. Others followed in the collection ofeveryday stories about sexual harassment and expanded the study to include men’snarratives and the intersectionalities of marginalization by way of the lived narrat-ive.40 A clear example of this type of work in narrative intersectionalities is found inBrenda Allen’s research.41 Specifically, Allen drew from existing socialization theoriesin organizational communication and feminist standpoint theory to describe herexperience as a Black woman becoming socialized in the academic workforce.Through self-interview as a narrative method, Allen argued that her story lendssupport to organizational socialization theory. Additionally, her story provoked areflection on problems of patriarchy and hegemony and became influential in thefield.

Narrative research expanded beyond the focus on individual’s stories alone to theexploration of what postmodernists called the grand narratives. For instance, Clairexplored the narrative construction of society by collecting the stories that surroundthe colloquialism “a real job.” This allowed her to assess what the expression meansto people and how it influences the organization of labor.42 Based on the findings,Clair argued that the colloquialism contains within it the grand narratives of society—specifically aspects of the ideological tenets of capitalism and communism. Theembedded ideology, in turn, influences the related everyday talk and the everydaytalk supports or challenges the grand narratives.

In a similar vein, Sarah Dempsey and Matthew Sanders revealed that althoughsocial entrepreneurship involves the resolution of grand social problems, meaningfulwork is replete with tensions. Mainly, the authors pointed out that achieving thegoals of social change requires a disruption of the work/life balance narrative to besubstituted with a narrative focusing on self-sacrifice, unpaid labor, and compro-mised familial bonds.43 In other words, the grand narratives influence the personalnarratives we live by.

Narrative Theory and Criticism 5

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Likewise, Clair and Adrianne Kunkel found that narratives created a way ofattending to heartbreaking or difficult situations experienced as part of workplacelife. They discovered that former teachers created narrative realities in an aestheticfashion to deal with the suspected child abuse they had witnessed in their priorpositions as elementary school teachers. In those cases, narratives provided solace.44

Each of the above discussed works contributed novel theoretical and methodologicalcontributions to narrative studies.

As a whole, scholarship on narratives has been growing with a wide variety ofstudies related to organizational life including retirement narratives,45 antisweatshopstories46 and entrepreneurial narratives.47 Such abundance of recent narrativescholarship in the organizational context is laudable, but at the same timedisconcerting. While the narrative movement has been evolving rapidly, organiza-tional communication scholars have voiced concerns that this scholarship does notpresent a uniform theoretical way of understanding organizational narrative and is inneed of an “open architecture” for organizing narratology.48 Nevertheless, these workshave added to the postmodern narrative movement in organizational communicationstudies. As David Boje, an earlier contributor to the organizational narrativemovement, put it, narrative is not just a cognitive instrument or way of studyingexperience, but a way of being in the world.49 In short, the theorists from this schoolof organizational narrative have drawn heavily from philosophy, in particular fromthe critical, postmodern, and phenomenological schools. Their general leaningsmight be summarized by Martin Heidegger’s statement that “language is the house ofbeing”50 and for organizational communication scholars, being in the narrative givesmeaning and understanding to the working lives that people live.

Narrative Theory: The Growing Presence in Health Communication

The health communication discipline, an offshoot of organizational communication,is a considerably younger area of study in comparison with its sibling disciplines suchas interpersonal communication,51 mass communication52 and organizationalcommunication,53 where each started to expand prodigiously between the years1950 to 1960. The inception of health communication arose later as a discipline inthe mid-1970s.54 The inaugural launch of Health Communication, the first journaldedicated to this area of study,55 occurred in the year 1989, and it has had aconsistent and significant impact on the social sciences.56 This timeline serves as aperfect reference point for establishing who the pioneers in narrative were in healthcommunication studies.

To be sure, there were other scholars who used narrative in the health context57

prior to the journal launch, but for the purposes of examining narrative in the healthcommunication field proper, it is perhaps best to use the journal launch as areference point. In the very first volume and issue of Health Communication in theyear 1989, David Smith and Jon Nussbaum separately urged fellow researchers toutilize narratives in contributing to the discipline, though neither writer themselvesused narrative as an application for study.58 Beth Ellis, Katherine Miller, and Charles

6 R. P. Clair et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Given used a very short narrative of an interviewee in the fourth issue of the firstvolume,59 but it was adapted from Tish Sommers and Laurie Shields’ work for aclosing example instead of application for research.60 It was only in the secondvolume that scholars took up Smith and Nussbaum’s call, wherein Patricia Geist andMonica Hardesty utilized short narrative accounts of physicians and patients toanalyze medical decision making.61 In the following issue, Ronald Chenail et al.incorporated supporting anecdotes.62 Barbara Sharf, on the other hand, employed thefirst fully developed narrative approach to health communication with a theoreticalframework.63

Thereafter, several scholars adopted the narrative approach. During the 1990s,these scholars primarily focused on patient–physician interaction, but the narrativeaccounts were fairly brief. In 1993, narrative application in health research rose64 butdid not extend beyond the use of short narrative excerpts. This changed during theturn of the century, when narrative was featured with greater frequency in the healthcommunication discipline, perhaps owing partly to new journals such as Journal ofHealth Communication.65 Since then, the use of narrative grew steadily and had acontinued consistent presence in the health communication field.66

Health communication narrative research grew67 and dealt with multifarioustopics. Examples include Angela Trethewey’s work on women and aging,68 LauraEllingson’s study on teamwork in healthcare organizations,69 Lynn Harter, PhyllisJapp, and Christina Beck’s work on narrative’s role in health and healing70, andArthur Frank’s research on the wounded storyteller.71 Although a categorical patternmight be dauntingly difficult to decipher, one trend is evident: the use of narrativewithin studies increased. Before the turn of the century, use of narrative was minimal,but the more recent articles employ narrative more liberally.72 For instance, Ellingsonutilized narrative embodiment, advocating for the inclusion of reference to theresearcher’s body.73 Taking up this call Clair and Marifran Mattson provided a recentand rich example as they tell and analyze the story of Mattson’s motorcycleaccident.74 The authors use dialogue to tell the story, including portions whereMattson is confronted by hospital personnel. They blame her for her condition,suggesting that she was old enough (at 40 years old) and smart enough (as aprofessor) to have known better. The authors identify this as an example of symbolicviolence where the medical professional uses the academic professional’s title and ageagainst her. Yet, in an interesting turnabout, the authors extend their empathy to themedical personnel who must face ever growing numbers of young people who arriveat the hospital emergency doors with life-threatening injuries (or worse, dead onarrival) due to motorcycle accidents. The authors provide numerous examplesthroughout the narrative that explain the functions of narrative and engagement bothduring Mattson’s critical incident, the recovery and the engagement period thatfollows. They assert that in addition to the symbolic violence, heroic discourse can befound in narrative healing.

From humble origins in 1989 to more prolific use after the turn of the century,narrative has found its permanent spot in health communication literature. Today, aquarter of a century later, the application of narrative theory and method is gaining

Narrative Theory and Criticism 7

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

influence.75 Given its successes in the years gone by, the application of narrative willlikely continue in health communication in years to come.

Narrative Theory: Combining Cultural Studies

When speaking of cultural studies confusion can arise over the definition of thesubfield. We suggest that critical-cultural studies (an offshoot of rhetoric), inter-cultural studies (an offshoot of interpersonal studies), performance studies (an off-shoot of oral interpretation once housed in rhetoric, as well as theater/drama) andethnographic studies (a combination of interpersonal, performance, and organiza-tional scholars) comprise research related to contemporary culture. Each of theseareas is so grounded in narrative that it is difficult to suggest that they ever existedwithout narrative. In general, critical-cultural studies are devoted to studyingcontemporary textual artifacts from a rhetorical/critical/postmodern perspective.Intercultural studies focus on interpersonal relationships across various cultures.Performance studies provide artistic expressions of lives, often calling upon criticaltheories for guidance. Finally, ethnographic studies provide moving portrayals of selfand/or self and others in the everyday culture. Owing to the rich intersections ofthese areas and their focus on the lived experience through narrative, we have chosento weave them together and discuss them in light of cultural concerns, specificallyissues of race, class, education, gender, sexual orientation and the intersectionalitiesbetween these fractionating discourses.

In a published letter to his mother, Kent Ono discussed the intersection of voices—personal and academic, as well as interracial—in sharing stories within and beyondthe academic sphere.76 Drawing from bell hooks, he examined how one can speakwith his “real voice,” vividly portraying the gulf between academic and personal lives.The estrangement of his divorced parents due in part to their families’ distinctethnicities further demonstrates the differences between racial identities within thesame person. Ono also coauthored with John H. Sloop to emphasize the need toexamine outlaw discourse in their discussion on countercultural responses tonarratives such as those alleging the rape of White women by Black men publishedby Atlanta newspapers before the 1906 race riots.77 Other examinations of contem-porary stories include Bill Yousman’s discussion of the HBO prison drama Oz asnarrative representation of incarceration that legitimizes the expansion of inhumaneprison environments and that expansion’s effects, especially on African Americans.78

Similarly, Norman Denzin79 explored the relationship between narrative representa-tions of race in movies and popular cultural perceptions of race and violence whileE. Patrick Johnson80 discussed the concept of “blackness” and its embodiment inperformance.

Dana Cloud’s work is informative on the discussion of economic inequality andthe null persona found in slave narratives.81 In additional research, she studiedtokenism in biographies and autobiographies such as those written about Oprah,scrutinizing the assumption that because Oprah is an African American star, herstory is one which provides resistance to hegemonic discourse. Cloud asserted that

8 R. P. Clair et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

tokenism does not necessarily challenge the metanarrative of the American Dream.Amanda Gatchet and Cloud added a critical inspection of the political (and again,racial) side of narrative in their work on the rhetoric of self-defense in representa-tions of the Black Panthers and the George W. Bush administration, both of whichcrafted stories with themselves as the “David” figure fighting “Goliath” in order tojustify violence.82 Greg Goodale and Jeremy Engels offered some hope of racialreconciliation in their examination of novels, oral traditions, epithets, and otherdiscursive traditions to reinterpret narratives of whiteness as examples of America’sacceptance of its biracial past.83 Finally, we must give high praise to the work of thelate Stuart Hall, who contributed to the understanding of racial identity via hisgroundbreaking work on interpolation and hegemony by way of telling his ownstories of what it meant to be Black across different cultures.84 His additional workon critical-cultural studies provided invaluable information for students of popularcritical-cultural studies and leant itself to expanding theory on narrative and racialissues.85

Narrative constructions can both reinforce or challenge socioeconomic status,which is one of the clearest indicators of position in capitalist societies. An examplefrom popular culture is demonstrated through a critique of the cultural and economicphenomenon, “Harry Potter.” Jarrod Waetjen and Timothy Gibson assessed theseries’ storyline and franchise first to look at how the author J.K. Rowling embeddeda critique of capitalism and class within her novels only to have her work fall into thechasm of marketing excess.86 But narratives do not have to be in the form of booksor movies to succumb to the capriciousness of capitalism. Clair, Pamela Chapman,and Kunkel’s discussion on the commodification of sensitive narratives pointed out acultural practice that can be applied to everyday interactions.87 Studies of sexualharassment found that women needed to provide a cache of stories to be heardbecause one complaint of sexual harassment would be seen as a “freebie.”88

Narrative portrayals of genders and issues of queer identity remains a heated topicfor critical-cultural researchers. Cloud looked at the portrayal of conservative genderidentities and romantic expectations in her study on viewers of The Bachelor.89 Fans’ambivalence—both ironic disinterest and genuine fascination—does not necessarilydetract from the power of the show’s conservative hegemonic narrative. Sloop dis-cussed gender performativity in relation to car racing, a historically male-dominatedprofession, by problematizing the plot of “boys vs. girls” and the heteronormativityestablished by press discourse prior to a race.90 Studying other issues of feminism,Stephanie Houston Grey examined Ally McBeal as allegory in relation to eatingdisorders and feminism.91 Helene Shugart offered an excellent examination of howRosie O’Donnell’s “coming out” as a lesbian and gay parent provided insight into thenegotiation between dominant narratives with competing narratives of resistance.92

Though we can only skim the surface of the narrative contributions from critical-cultural studies scholars because of the plethora of published articles and books, wewould like to point out that not all cultural studies of narrative are restricted to thesubject of marginalization.

Narrative Theory and Criticism 9

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Besides examinations of such issues as race, gender, and sociopolitical status,critical-cultural scholars have also applied narrative to understand the framing ofsituations. For instance, Todd McDorman wrote of the use of narratives inestablishing and normalizing state supremacy in life and death decisions.93 FranMcInerney looked into the Australian movement in support of requested death anddiscovered heroic frames—melodramatic deaths, fearful villainy of the doctors, rebelheroes, and heroic victims—used to persuade the general public to agree to legalizeassisted medical death in the late 1990s.94 Bryan McCann discovered the rhetoricaluse of “victimhood” in discussions on the death penalty by way of narrative.95 Mostrecently, Carolyn Ellis employed narrative ethnography to explore the stories ofHolocaust survivors.96 But cultural studies are not limited to stories of death anddying. Life is also performed.

Soyini Madison wrote of performativity as “the labor of reflexivity,” the “demandfor a transparent accountability, skilled artistry, and radical politics from theresearcher.”97 Her work shows the importance of engagement and reflection on theresearcher’s role within culture. Della Pollock contributed important insights to thediscussion of performative studies’ use of narratives when she wrote of livinggendered identities and how story can frame identity through life performances.98

Recently, Shane Moreman and an unnamed student, writing under the pseudonym ofpersona non grata accepted this challenge by examining the marginalized voices ofundocumented students, discussing the body as text and the lived story as a criticalvoice against the stifling constraints of legally imposed silence.99 Clair provided anethnographic study of life and death, sorrows, and joys of people closest to the earth,farmers in the heartland while telling her own story of loss and love.100 Theseethnographic accounts are often founded on personal narratives that give meaning tohuman struggle,101 while also being demonstrative of a “struggle [that] is personal,cultural, and political.”102 They represent “an autobiographical genre of writing andresearch that displays multiple layers of consciousness.”103 Narrative serves manyfunctions on the critical spectrum, from supporting hegemonic practices to providinga means for resistance and emancipation.

Owing to space constraints, we are restricted from providing more examples ofcultural contributions to narrative theory. For the interested reader, we recommend arecent award-winning special journal edited collection where performance artists,ethnographers and auto-ethnographers, intercultural scholars and critical-culturalscholars came together to tell stories of self and other under the framework ofnarrative reflexivity.104

Narrative Clusters with Extended Narrative Empathy

As we have pointed out, discussions of narrative can be traced to antiquity. In morerecent years, communication scholars from several subfields have contributed to theconversation in invaluable ways. Based on our current literature review, we feel safein suggesting that narratives serve many purposes: to entertain, to educate, topersuade, to provide catharsis and aesthetic resolution, to create community and

10 R. P. Clair et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

simultaneously to ostracize, to oppress, and yet to offer resistance, to heal, toemancipate, and to grant future possibilities. Furthermore, we assert that narrativesrepresent several genres: ancestral, historical, cultural, organizational, health,personal, and so on.105 These different forms have led scholars to explore narrativeas different modes, from artifacts to lived experience. As such, the stories might beanalyzed from various theoretical positions for their agency, motive, moralimplications, motivational intent, means to alter time and space, and the ability toalter the lives of individuals and society.106 They might also be studied as individualexpressions—a single story—or they might be assessed in clusters. We suggest thatfuture work would do well to address the notion that no one story stands alone, thatstories are connected, sometimes existing in clusters and extend infinitely, crossingcultures and generations.107

We are reminded of the 17th-century novel L’Astrée, which is referred to as “thenovel of novels” (It has six parts, 40 stories, 60 books, and a total of 5,399 pages).One story threads into another and yet another, while other stories digress, and stillan overarching novel exists. Written by Honoré d’Urfé, the novel took 20 years topublish, and it relied on serial publication with clusters of stories or what was calledfascicle in the 17th century, which was made hugely popular by Charles Dickens’serial publications in the 1800s. Viewing narrative as an unfolding experience (liketurning the pages of the book) will remind narrative scholars that no story standsalone, that interruptions and digressions occur, that stories exist in clusters, and thatperhaps one narrative binds us all. Furthermore, L’Astrée not only continues to bepublished today in standard form but also is available as a comic book and has beenmade into a movie. It lives on.108

Notably, this “never-ending novel” was born from an ancient myth—the Greekmyth of Astrea, the daughter of Zeus, who represents innocence, justice, and renewal.She left earth when it reached a period of debauchery but is prophesied to return tobring the new era, the golden dawn. Honoré d’Urfé named the heroine of his novelAstrée (Astrea). The protagonist, Astrée, travels the many paths of romance. Webelieve that Astrea’s symbolization of innocence, justice, and renewal is also acompelling means to approach analysis of narratives, especially when we areexploring the vulnerable truths of self and others. Thus, we encourage researchersof narrative to approach the stories they study as if they could be told and receivedfrom multiple perspectives. That is, we propose a means of critique grounded innarrative empathy that extends beyond the present story to those stories that mightexist in the cluster of narratives yet may be from another time or place.109 We callthis approach extended narrative empathy.

Extended narrative empathy requires a continual sense of reflexivity for a fullerunderstanding to be achieved. In keeping with Hannah Arendt, we suggest that theway to understanding is by taking as many perspectives as possible.110 And inagreement with Hans-Georg Gadamer, we believe that this is the means to expandinghuman horizons.111 If narratologists are to achieve greater knowledge and practice ofnarrative with the hope of creating a better world, then it is time to take on multipleperspectives in terms of theory, method, and practice. We believe narrative cluster

Narrative Theory and Criticism 11

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

theory coupled with extended narrative empathy, that is, the understanding that nonarrative stands alone and clusters of stories may create an overarching narrative thatcan best be understood by way of empathetic reflexivity, may provide a valuablemeans to move narrative studies forward. Furthermore, this may be the means toconnect subdisciplines regarding narratology. The extended narrative empathicapproach generates potential not only for wider, deeper, richer interpretations ofnarrative within subdisciplines but also across disciplines. As such, narrative clustertheory and extended narrative empathy could open onto unique interpretativepossibilities and theoretical frameworks of narrative for the entire communicationfield. This novel theoretical and methodological approach may move us into the next100 years of narrative study and provide potentially dynamic insights.

Notes

[1] Kenneth Burke, Language as Symbolic Action (Berkeley: University of California Press,1966). René Girard, Violence and the Sacred trans. P. Gregory (Baltimore, MD: JohnHopkins University Press 1972/7). Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979): 14. Eric Gans, The Origin of Language (Los Angeles:University of California Press, 1981). C. David Mortensen, “Communication, Conflict andCulture.,” Communication Theory 1 (1991): 273–93. Robin Patric Clair, OrganizingSilence: A World of Possibilities (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998).Kris Acheson, “Silence as Gesture: Rethinking the Nature of Communicative Silences,”Communication Theory 18, no. 4 (October 29, 2008): 535–55, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2008.00333.x.

[2] Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York:Routledge, 1982).

[3] Plato, “Poetic Inspiration: The Ion,” in Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology, ed. Dickie George,Sclafani Richard, and Roblin Ronald, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 10–19.

[4] Aristotle, The Nature of Poetic Imitation: From the Poetics, eds. Dickie George, SclafaniRichard, and Roblin Ronald, Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology, 2nd ed. (New York: St.Martin’s Press, 1989).

[5] Ibid., 6.[6] Longinus, “On the Sublime,” in The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to

the Present, eds. Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001),344–58.

[7] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, trans. P. Fadiman. InThe Philosophy of Nietzsche (New York: Random House, 1872/1954) 947–1088.

[8] Debra Hawhee, “Burke and Nietzsche,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 85, no. 2 (May 1999):129–45, doi:10.1080/00335639909384250.

[9] Diedre Bair, Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography (New York: Summit Books, 1990).[10] Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 1979).[11] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, trans. R. Hurley, vol. 1 (New

York: Vintage, 1976); Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,trans. A. Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1977).

[12] W. J. T. Mitchell, “On Narrative,” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 1 (1980): 1–236, http://www.jstor.org/stable/i257724. Following On Narrative but prior to the publication Homo Narrans,William G. Kirkwood posed the argument that storytelling and especially koans and

12 R. P. Clair et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

parables act as a means of self-confrontation, allowing the listener to reflect on his or herlife. Self-confrontation, he argued, moves beyond the catharsis suggested by Aristotle as itprovides “epistemic and therapeutic” potential 59. In a follow-up essay, Kirkwood pointedout that parables are more than exemplars of good action and (relying on Funk’s work,427) that the parable is meant to prod the individual to supply the ending because it“creates unexpected possibilities,” 448, and a newfound “awareness,” 430. In this respect,Kirkwood’s idea of a narrative is reminiscent of Aristotle’s reasoning by enthymeme, thusgiving narrative its own form of logic. William G. Kirkwood, “Storytelling and Self-Confrontation: Parables as Communication Strategies,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 69(1983): 58–74; William G. Kirkwood, “Parables as Metaphors and Examples,” QuarterlyJournal of Speech 71 (1985): 422–40.

[13] George Gerbner, “Homo Narrans,” Journal of Communication 35, no. 4 (1985): 73–171.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcom.1985.35.issue-4/issuetoc.

[14] Walter R. Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of PublicMoral Argument,” Communication Monographs 51 (1984): 1–22.

[15] Ibid., 1.[16] Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (South Bend, IN: University of

Notre Dame Press, 1981), 200; Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm:The Case of Public Moral Argument,” 1.

[17] MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 194; Fisher, “Narration as a HumanCommunication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument,” 2.

[18] Ibid., 3.[19] Ibid., 3.[20] Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944), 26; Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in aNew Key (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942), 264; Kenneth Burke,Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1968), 16.

[21] Walter R. Fisher, “The Narrative Paradigm: An Elaboration,” Communication Mono-graphs 52 (1985): 347–67; Walter R. Fisher, “The Narrative Paradigm: In the Beginning,”Journal of Communication 35 (1985): 73–89. Fisher, “Narration as a Human Commun-ication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument,” 1–22.

[22] Ibid., 6.[23] Ibid., 7.[24] Ibid., 8.[25] Angel Medina, Reflection, Time and the Novel: Towards a Communicative Theory of

Literature (London: Routledge and Keagan Paul, 1979), 30; Fisher, “The Narrative Para-digm: In the Beginning,” 10. Fisher, “The Narrative Paradigm: An Elaboration.”

[26] Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public MoralArgument.”

[27] Ibid., 13.[28] Ibid., 18.[29] Gerbner, “Homo Narrans.”[30] Robert C. Rowland, “Narrative: Mode of Discourse or Paradigm?,” Communication

Monographs 54, no. 3 (September 1987): 264–75, doi:10.1080/03637758709390232;Barbara Warnick, “The Narrative Paradigm: Another Story,” Quarterly Journal of Speech73, no. 2 (May 1987): 172–82, doi:10.1080/00335638709383801; W. Lance Haynes,“Shifting Media, Shifting Paradigms, and the Growing Utility of Narrative as Metaphor,”Communication Studies 40, no. 2 (June 1989): 109–26, doi:10.1080/10510978909368261.

Narrative Theory and Criticism 13

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

[31] W. Lance Bennett and Murray Edelman, “Toward a New Political Narrative,” Journal ofCommunication 35 (1985): 158.

[32] Haynes, “Shifting Media, Shifting Paradigms, and the Growing Utility of Narrative asMetaphor”; Ernest Bormann, “The Eagleton Affair: A Fantasy Theme Analysis,” QuarterlyJournal of Speech 59, no. 2 (1973): 143–59.

[33] Haynes, “Shifting Media, Shifting Paradigms, and the Growing Utility of Narrative asMetaphor”; Kenneth Burke, Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose (London:University of California Press, 1984). Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives (LosAngeles: University of California Press, 1945).

[34] William G. Kirkwood, “Narrative and the Rhetoric of Possibility,” CommunicationMonographs 59, no. 1 (March 1992): 30–47, doi:10.1080/03637759209376247.

[35] Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of PoliticalSpeechmaking (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

[36] Peter J. Frost “Power, Politics, and Influence” in Handbook of organizational Communi-cation: An Interdisciplinary Approach ed. F. M. Jablin, L.L. Putnam, K.H. Roberts, andL.W. Porter (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1985) 503–48.; Linda Putnam andMichael Pacanowsky, Communication and Organizations: An Interpretive Approach(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1983).

[37] Dennis K. Mumby, “The Political Function of Narrative in Organizations,” Communica-tion Monographs 54 (1987): 113–27.

[38] Robin Patric Clair, “The Use of Framing Devices to Sequester Organizational Narratives:Hegemony and Harassment.,” Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association(Atlanta, 1991); Robin Patric Clair, “The Use of Framing Devices to SequesterOrganizational Narratives: Hegemony and Harassment,” Communication Monographs60 (1993): 113–36; Clair, Organizing Silence: A World of Possibilities. Ibid.

[39] Julia T. Wood et al., “Telling Our Stories: Sexual Harassment in the CommunicationDiscipline,” Journal of Applied Communication Research 20, no. 4 (1992): 1–463, http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.lib.purdue.edu/toc/rjac20/20/4.

[40] Robin Patric Clair, “Resistance and Oppression as a Self-Contained Opposite: AnOrganizational Communication Analysis of One Man’s Story of Sexual Harassment,”Western Journal of Communication 58 (1994): 235–62.

[41] Brenda J. Allen, “Feminist Standpoint Theory: A Black Woman’s (Re)View of Organiza-tional Socialization,” Communication Studies 47, no. 4 (1996): 257–71.

[42] Robin Patric Clair, “The Political Nature of the Colloquialism, ‘A Real Job’: Implicationsfor Organizational Socialization,” Communication Monographs 63 (1996): 249–67.

[43] Sarah E. Dempsey and Matthew L. Sanders, “Meaningful Work? Nonprofit Marketizationand Work/Life Imbalance in Popular Autobiographies of Social Entrepreneurship,”Organization 17 (2010): 437–59.

[44] Robin Patric Clair and Adrianne W. Kunkel, “’Unrealistic Realities’: Child Abuse and theAesthetic Resolution,” Communication Monographs 65, no. 1 (1998): 24–46.

[45] William L. Randall and A. Elizabeth McKim, Reading Out Lives: The Poetics of GrowingOld (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

[46] Robin Patric Clair, “Engaged Ethnography and the Story(ies) of the Anti-SweatshopMovement,” Cultural Studies<- ->Cultural Methodologies 12 (2012): 132–45.

[47] Martin L. Martens, Jennifer E. Jennings, and P. Devereaux Jennings, “Do the Stories TheyTell Get Them the Money They Need? The Role of Entrepreneurial Narratives inResources Acquisition,” Academy of Management Journal 50, no. 5 (2007): 1107–32,http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20159915?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103397100821.

14 R. P. Clair et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

[48] Larry Browning and George H. Morris, Narrative Theory and Organizational Life: Ideasand Applications (New York: Routledge, 2012).

[49] David M. Boje, “The Storytelling Organization: A Study of Story Performance in anOffice-Supply Firm,” Administrative Science Quarterly 36, no. 1 (1991): 106–26.

[50] Martin Heidegger, Letter on “Humanism,” ed. William McNeill, trans. Frank A. Capuzzi(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

[51] Mark L. Knapp et al., “Background and Current Trends in the Study of InterpersonalCommunication,” in Handbook of Interpersonal Communication eds. M. L. Knapp andJ. A. Daly, 3rd ed. (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 2002), 3–20.

[52] Steven H. Chaffee and Miriam J. Metzger, “The End of Mass Communication?” MassCommunication & Society 4, no. 4 (2001): 365–79.

[53] W. Charles Redding, “Stumbling toward Identity: The Emergence of OrganizationalCommunication as a Field of Study,” in Organizational Communication: TraditionalThemes and New Directions, eds. Robert D. McPhee and Philip K. Tompkins (BeverlyHills, CA: Sage Publications, 1985), 15–54.

[54] Teresa L. Thompson, “Introduction,” in Handbook of Health Communication, eds. TeresaL. Thompson et al., 1st ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2003), 1–5.

[55] Ibid.[56] Thomas Hugh Feeley et al., “A Journal-Level Analysis of Health Communication,” Health

Communication 25, no. 6–7 (2010): 516–21.[57] M. M. Khan, “Silence as Communication,” Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 27, no. 6

(1963): 300–13.[58] David. H. Smith, “Studying Health Communication: An Agenda for the Future,” Health

Communication 1, no. 1 (1989): 17–27; Jon F. Nussbaum, “Directions for Research WithinHealth Communication,” Health Communication 1, no. 1 (1989): 35–40.

[59] Beth Hartman Ellis, Katherine I. Miller, and Charles W. Given, “Caregivers in HomeHealth Care Situations: Measurement and Relations Among Critical Concepts,” HealthCommunication 1, no. 4 (1989): 207–26.

[60] Tish Sommers and Laurie Shields, Women Take Care: The Consequences of Caregiving into- Day’s Society (Gainesville: Triad, 1987).

[61] Patricia Geist and Monica Hardesty, “Reliable, Silent, Hysterical, or Assured: In TheirMedical Decision Making,” Health Communication 2, no. 2 (1990): 69–90.

[62] Ronald M. Chenail et al., “It’s Probably Nothing Serious, But . . .”: Parents’ Interpretationof Referral to Pediatric Cardiologists,” Health Communication 2, no. 3 (1990): 165–87.

[63] Barbara F. Sharf, “Physician-Patient Communication as Interpersonal Rhetoric: ANarrative Approach,” Health Communication 2, no. 4 (1990): 217–31.

[64] Keith Cherry and David H. Smith, “Sometimes I Cry: The Experience of Loneliness forMen with AIDS,” Health Communication 5, no. 3 (1993): 181–208; Barbara F. Sharf andVicki S. Freimuth, “The Construction of Illness on Entertainment Television: Coping withCancer on Thirtysomething,” Health Communication 5, no. 3 (1993): 141–60.

[65] Rebecca Weldon, “An ‘Urban Legend’ of Global Proportion: An Analysis of NonfictionAccounts of the Ebola Virus,” Journal of Health Communication: InternationalPerspectives 6, no. 3 (2001): 281–94; Thomas. A. Workman, “Finding the Meanings ofCollege Drinking: An Analysis of Fraternity Drinking Stories,” Health Communication 13,no. 4 (2001): 427–47.

[66] Raymond W. Gibbs Jr. and Heather Franks, “Embodied Metaphor in Women’s NarrativesAbout Their Experiences with Cancer,” Health Communication 14, no. 2 (2002): 139–65;Jennifer Ott Anderson and Patricia Geist Martin, “Narratives and Healing: Exploring OneFamily’s Stories of Cancer Survivorship,” Health Communication 15, no. 2 (2003): 133–43;

Narrative Theory and Criticism 15

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Amanda J. Young and Keri. L. Rodriguez, “The Role of Narrative in Discussing End-of-Life Care: Eliciting Values and Goals from Text, Context, and Subtext,” HealthCommunication 19, no. 1 (2006): 49–59.

[67] Teresa. L. Thompson, “Seventy-Five (count ’em—75!) Issues of Health Communication:An Analysis of Emerging Themes,” Health Communication 20, no. 2 (2006): 117–22.

[68] Angela Trethewey, “Reproducing and Resisting the Master Narrative of Decline MidlifeProfessional Women’s Experiences of Aging,” Management Communication Quarterly 15,no. 2 (2001): 183–226.

[69] Laura L. Ellingson, “Interdisciplinary Health Care Teamwork in the Clinic Backstage,”Journal of Applied Communication Research 31, no. 2 (2003): 93–117.

[70] Lynn M. Harter, Phyllis M. Japp, and Christina S. Beck, ed. Narratives, Health, andHealing: Communication Theory, Research, and Practice (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005).

[71] Arthur W. Frank, The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1995).

[72] Courtney Lynam Scherr and Marifran Mattson, “From Research to Self-Reflection:Learning About Ourselves as Academics Through a Support Group’s Resistance to OurIntervention,” Health Communication 27, no. 3 (2012): 310–13.

[73] Laura L. Ellingson, “Embodied Knowledge: Writing Researchers’ Bodies into QualitativeHealth Research,” Qualitative Health Research 16, no. 2 (2006): 298–310.

[74] Robin Patric Clair and Marifran Mattson, “From Accident to Activity: An EthnographicStudy of Community Engagement—From Symbolic Violence to Heroic Discourse,”Tamara: Journal of Critical Organizational Inquiry 11 (2013): 27–40.

[75] Daena J. Goldsmith and Gregory A. Miller, “Conceptualizing How Couples Talk aboutCancer,” Health Communication 29, no. 1 (2014): 51–63.

[76] Kent A. Ono, “A Letter/Essay I’ve Been Longing to Write in My Personal/AcademicVoice,” Western Journal of Communication 61, no. 1 (1997): 114–25.

[77] John M. Sloop and Kent A. Ono, “Out-Law Discourse: The Critical Politics of MaterialJudgment,” Philosophy of Rhetoric 30, no. 1 (1997): 50–69.

[78] Bill Yousman, “Inside Oz: Hyperviolence, Race and Class Nightmares, and the EngrossingSpectacle of Terror,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 6, no. 3 (2009): 265–84.

[79] Norman Denzin, Reading Race: Hollywood and the Cinema of Racial Violence (London:SAGE Publications, 2002).

[80] E. Patrick Johnson, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity(London: Duke University Press, 2003).

[81] Dana L. Cloud, “The Null Persona: Race and the Rhetoric of Silence in the Uprising of’34,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 2, no. 2 (1999): 177–209.

[82] Amanda Davis Gatchet and Dana L. Cloud, “David, Goliath, and the Black Panthers: TheParadox of the Oppressed Militant in the Rhetoric of Self-Defense,” Journal ofCommunication Inquiry 31, no. 1 (2013): 5–25.

[83] Greg Goodale and Jeremy Engels, “Black and White: Vestiges of Biracialism in AmericanDiscourse.,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7, no. 1 (2010): 70–89.

[84] Stuart Hall, “Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-StructuralistDebates,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2, no. 2 (1985): 91–114, doi:10.1080/15295038509360070.

[85] Stuart Hall et al., Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices, ed.Stuart Hall (London: Sage Publications, 1997).

[86] Jarrod Waetjen and Timothy Gibson, “Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish:Activating Corporate Readings in the Journey from Text to Commercial Intertext,”Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4, no. 1 (2007): 3–26.

16 R. P. Clair et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

[87] Robin Patric Clair, Pamela A. Chapman, and Adrianne W. Kunkel, “NarrativeApproaches to Raising Consciousness about Sexual Harassment: From Research toPedagogy and Back Again,” Journal of Applied Communication Research 24, no. 4(November 1996): 241–59, doi:10.1080/00909889609365455.

[88] Clair, Organizing Silence: A World of Possibilities, 114.[89] Dana L. Cloud, “The Irony Bribe and Reality Television: Investment and Detatchment in

The Bachelor,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 27, no. 5 (2010): 413–37.[90] John M. Sloop, “Riding in Cars Between Men,” Communication and Critical/Cultural

Studies 2, no. 3 (2005): 191–213.[91] Stephanie Houston Grey, “Ally Mcbeal as Allegory:Setting the Eating-Disordered Subject

in Opposition to Feminism,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 3, no. 4 (2006):288–306.

[92] Helene Shugart, “On Misfits and Margins: Narrative Resistance and the Poster ChildPolitics of Rosie O’Donnell,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2, no. 1 (2005):52–76.

[93] Todd F. McDorman, “Controlling Death: Bio-Power and the Right-to-Die Controvery,”Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2, no. 3 (2005): 257–79.

[94] Fran McInerney, “Heroic Frames: Discursive Constructions around the Requested DeathMovement in Australia in the Late 1990s,” Social Science & Medicine 62, no. 3 (2006):654–67.

[95] Bryan J. McCann, “Therapeutic and Material <Victim>hood: Ideology and the Struggle forMeaning in the Illinois Death Penalty Controversy,” Communication and Critical/CulturalStudies 4, no. 4 (2007): 382–401.

[96] Carolyn Ellis and Jerry Rawicki, “Collaborative Witnessing of Survival during theHolocaust: An Exemplar of Relational Autoethnography,” Qualitative Inquiry 19, no. 5(2013): 366–80, http://qix.sagepub.com/content/19/5/366.full.pdf+html.

[97] Sonyini Madison, “The Labor of Reflexivity,” Cultural Studies <- -> Critical Methodologies11, no. 2 (2011): 554.

[98] Della Pollock, “Failing,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4, no. 4 (2007): 441.[99] Shane T. Moreman & Persona Non Grata, “Learning from and Mentoring the

Undocumented AB540 Student: Hearing an Unheard Voice,” Text and PerformanceQuarterly 31, no. 3 (2011): 303–20.

[100] Clair, “Reflexivity and Rhetorical Ethnography: From Family Farm to Orphanage andBack Again.” Cultural Studies <- -> Critical Methodologies 11 (2011): 117–28. This workwas turned into a novel which in turn became a text for a contemporary rhetoric course.Robin Clair, Zombie Seed and the Butterfly Blues: A Case of Social Justice (Boston:Sense, 2013)

[101] Lyall Crawford, “Personal Ethnography,” Communication Monographs 63, no. 2 (1996):158–70, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03637759609376384.

[102] Arthur P. Bochner, “Narrative’s Virtues,” Qualitative Inquiry 7 (2001): 147, http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=spe_facpub.

[103] Carolyn Ellis, “Heartful Autoethnography,” Qualitative Health Research 9 (1999): 673.[104] 104. Keith Berry and Robin Patric Clair, ed. “The Call of Ethnographic Reflexivity:

Narrating the Self’s Presence in Ethnography,” Cultural Studies <- -> Critical Methodo-logies 11 (2011).

[105] Dolores V. Tanno. “Names, Narratives, and the Evolution of Ethnic Identity,” in OurVoices: Essays in Culture, Ethnicity, and Communication, eds. Alberto González, MarshaHouston, and Victoria Chen, 30–33.(Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company, 1994);Robin Patric Clair. “Organizing Silence: Silence as Voice and Voice as Silence in the

Narrative Theory and Criticism 17

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Narrative Exploration of the Treaty of New Echota. Western Journal of Communication61, no. 3 (1997): 315–37; Barbara F. Sharf, “Physician-Patient Communication asInterpersonal Rhetoric: A Narrative Approach.”

[106] Browning and Morris, Narrative Theory and Organizational Life: Ideas and Applications.Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives.

[107] Narratives in the Old Neighborhood: An Ethnographic Study of an Urban Neighborhood’sStories. Qualitative Inquiry 12, no. 6 (2006): 1244–61.

[108] Honoré d’ Urfé, Astrea, trans. Steven Rendall (Binghamton, N.Y: Medieval & RenaissanceTexts & Studies, 1995). L’Astrée. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L’Astrée

[109] Clair and Mattson, “From Accident to Activity: An Ethnographic Study of CommunityEngagement—From Symbolic Violence to Heroic Discourse.”

[110] Hannah Arendt, “Reflections: Thinking-II,” The New Yorker, 1977.[111] Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd (New York: Crossroad, 1982).

18 R. P. Clair et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Lau

rent

ian

Uni

vers

ity]

at 2

3:09

08

Dec

embe

r 20

14