פרסומים

This essay focuses on the various forms of narrating, mediating, and interpreting selves within and around a book object, the novel S. (2013) by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst. The novel S. is an experiment in producing a deceivingly realistic replica of a maltreated library book object, but its discursive practices also rely on familiar literary forms, harking back to epistolary commonplaces, as well as to marginalia, both ancient and modern. The book object S., which carries the text of the novel-within-a-novel, the readers’ multilayered markings, and paraphernalia, forms an archive dramatizing the workings of memory, thought, and emotion. That archive also demonstrates how the characters collect, organize, and process data from a variety of media sources. S. also problematizes narration, mediation, and the representation of textual selves through its data overkill verging on unreadability. Modifying Garrett Stewart’s notion, the essay considers the possible significances of narrative “demediation” in experiments with the nearly dysfunctional book form. The very act of demediating signifies conceptually, by its very presence, as conceptual art customarily does. In the case of S., it conceptualizes textual communication and minds in interaction even to a degree of confusion, not-reading, or veritable library silence in reception.

This article discusses how features in a narrative generate an understanding of its purpose and how this understanding affects our attitude when reading and interpreting a text. It focusses on biblical texts that aspire to be historical but still contain elements that are generally thought to belong to the realm of fiction, as well as on texts with an assumed argumentative purpose and traits that create a sense of literary art. The four texts are Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan, the book of Nehemiah, autobiographical sections in Paul, and third-person narratives in the books of Samuel. The article suggests that our understanding of the frame determines the function and meaning of the forms; yet it also argues that the presence of certain forms might challenge conventional assumptions about the frame, that is, the purpose of some narratives.

This introduction to the forum “Narrating Selves from the Bible to Social Media” contextualizes the theme by taking recourse to philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s reflections on self-narration. MacIntyre poses the question about personal continuity in spite of the necessary change. With his concept of “character,” he makes explicit the connection to literature, thus emphasizing a degree of creativity when people tell their life stories. The contributions to the forum explore this aspect by also highlighting the role of the everyday and the media through which selves are portrayed.