Narrative & Genre - Contexts and Types of Communication

Any life story, whether a written autobiography or an oral testimony, is shaped not only by the reworkings of experience through memory and re-evaluation, but also by art. Any communication has to use shared conventions not only of language itself, but also the more complex expectations of "genre," the forms expected within a given context and type of communication. How far do the expectations and forms of genre shape different kinds of autobiography and influence what messages it can convey? Genre is not an easy matter to discuss; on the one hand the term is relatively new for social scientists, while on the other it has a very long and at times confusing history in literature and the visual arts, which continues to yield many helpful insights on autobiography. The objective of the volume, therefore, is to encourage a creative interdisciplinary approach to genre issues which brings together current thinking in both the humanities and social sciences. This collection of essays by international academics draws on a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities to examine how the various forms of genre shape different kinds of autobiography and the messages they convey. After investigating the problem of genre definition, and tracing the evolution of genre as a concept, contributors explore such issues as: How far can we argue that what people narrate in their autobiographical stories is selected and shaped by the repertoire of genre available to them? To what extent is oral autobiography shaped by its social and cultural context? What is the relationship between autobiographical sources and the ethnographer? Narrative and Genre presents exciting new debates in an emerging field and will encourage international and interdisciplinary discussion. Its authors and contributors are scholars from the fields of anthropology, cultural studies, literary analysis, psychology, psychoanalysis, social history, and sociology.