In memoriam: Leonard J. Theberge

The study examines Pat Robertson's use of The 700 Club television program to establish and sustain celebrity status and in turn to promote partisan politics through seemingly objective news accounts. The findings indicate that The 700 Club news segments consistently rely on narrative techniques that mask Robertson's intensely partisan content and provide what Kenneth Burke terms symbolic medicine for his particular audience.     

The Domestication of Violence: Forging a Collective Memory of the Holocaust in Britain, 1945-6

Stone engages with his subject on two levels, the theoretical and the empirical. On the theoretical side, he argues for the meaningfulness of the term 'collective memory' by showing how the response to the Holocaust in Britain served certain communal needs. 'Collective memory' here is the way in which a group produces narratives of the past which enable it to perpetuate itself, to take account of the past without disturbing its own self-definition. On the empirical level, Stone shows that this response was one which domesticated the horror of what had occurred in order to make its narration bearable. The process was by no means a deliberate whitewashing of the murders; it demonstrates how, in the construction of collective memory, the most painful episodes are unconsciously written out or integrated into more uplifting stories. For example, the murder of the Jews of Europe was frequently tied into a narrative of catastrophe and redemption in which the Zionist cause signalled the Jews' ultimate triumph over adversity. Looking at well-known texts and figures such as James Parkes, as well as lesser-known ones, Stone shows that 'collective memory' is a useful term for understanding the way in which texts and rituals combine to construct (whether consciously or otherwise) a certain understanding of the past. In the case of the British response to the Holocaust in the immediate post-war period, this meant a failure to recognize the full enormity of what had taken place, and the incorporation of the murders into culturally familiar narratives.     

融贯论的可能性与限度——作为追求法官论证合理性的适当态度和方法

法律领域一般有三种融贯论：法律论证中的融贯论、法律体系内的融贯论、法律融贯主义。结合此三种理论可以很好地分析法官审判实践中的论证标准。融贯论的运用必须区分叙述性融贯和规范性融贯。叙述性融贯保持认识论的基本原则，规范性融贯则是与法官的实践理性相关。叙述性融贯中基础融贯论为法官认定事实提供了形式标准；而在规范性融贯中，解释的融贯论揭示了法官的基本立场以及价值取向，它不是庸俗化的实用主义，而是一种有效地实现关于法律命题完整集合的方法。在这两个层面上，法官的论证可以趋向认识上的合理性以及价值判断上的合理性。     

The Unmasking of the Metaphysicians or the Deconstructing of Metaphysics?

Abstract

This essay argues that Popper's work, seen from the vantage point of increasing historical distance, can be viewed as the first attempt to understand the grand narrative as the adjustment of metaphysics to the modern world. When viewed from such a distance enduring questions regarding holism, identity, essentialism, and truth can once again be thrown into relief, together with the pressing issues of the paradox of freedom and sovereignty.     

中国学生英语写作中的叙事性话语

中国学生和英语母语作者在英语写作中对叙事性话语的使用表明，中国学生比母语作者更倾向于使用叙事性话语来说明事物。这种差异来自于母语迁移的作用，导致迁移的原因在于中国人习惯于领域依托式的思维方式，而英美人却习惯于领域无依托式的思维方式。     

Managing public affairs through storytelling

Storytelling has recently been discovered as an important tool for gaining the support of those external constituencies the organisation critically depends upon. This paper explores the narrative approach to public affairs by reporting an in‐depth case study of the storytelling practices of representatives of the global foods industry and environmental activist groups during the recent introduction of genetically modified food crops. The analysis reveals that these parties use competing versions of what are essentially the same narratives to gain the support of regulators and the public at large in the various market and non‐market arenas in which these groups compete. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Redemption and reproach: Religion and carceral control in action among women in prison

Criminologists are increasingly interested in how a variety of justice-adjacent institutions scaffold surveillance and punishment in the U.S. criminal justice system. A relevant but understudied institution within the carceral state is that of religion. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork inside a U.S. state women's prison, I interrogate how religion—predominately conservative and evangelical Protestantism—served dual purposes in light of carceral control. Religion offered redemptive narratives to counter punitive carceral narratives promulgated by the state. At the same time, this narrative shift from “flawed” to “faithful” prescribed particular forms of embodiment: avoiding fights and rejecting sexual relationships with women. These forms of Protestant embodiment aligned with carceral purposes, such that women who reprimanded others for breaching religious norms were simultaneously enforcing prison rules. Although rhetorically challenging official prison narratives on the meaning of incarceration, Protestant narratives in practice regulated women's emotional and sexual behaviors and fostered a system of informal surveillance among incarcerated women. These findings illuminate how organizational narratives are linked to individual action. More broadly, they suggest how an institution such as religion can undergird state authority within an intractable context of carceral control.     

Troubling notions of farmer choice: hybrid Bt cotton seed production in western India

The debate over agricultural biotechnology is increasingly being centered on the question of farmer choice. Advocates for biotechnology argue that farmers should be able to choose the seeds and technologies they use, and therefore these new technologies should be legalized and made available immediately. Who would deny farmers of the global South their right to choose? But these discourses of choice and freedom are being deployed to market a particular kind of development. This neoliberal development of agriculture is leading to the individualization of risk, the shifting of risk to marginalized contract farming households, and greater control for wealthier farmers, seed companies and agents. The state of Gujarat, India, is seen as a success story of hybrid Bt cotton, in which farmers have their choice of hundreds of varieties of seeds. As cotton seed production is taking off in the neighboring state of Rajasthan, however, choosing Bt cotton has different implications and meanings altogether. Drawing on eight months of qualitative research with adivasi households in Dungarpur District, Rajasthan, I offer narrative accounts from farmers and seed agents that both explore and trouble neoliberal notions of farmer choice. The use of these discourses by biotech advocates is just one example of the ways that choice and freedom are being utilized to further neoliberal development.     

Vulnerability,Agency and the Ambivalence of Place in Narratives of Rape in Three High-Profile Swedish Cases

For decades, the media have frequently been instrumental in framing rape cases by linking the deed with the place. This study demonstrates that law courts are not innocent of such social framing; on the contrary, they are significant agents. We argue that courts, by shaping the plot in rape cases, participate in an ongoing cultural production of meaning, although in a more subtle and ambivalent way than the media. In a narrative analysis of three contemporary rape cases in Sweden, we bring together feminist research on place with the concepts of vulnerability and agency. We argue that place is framed as ambivalent in relation to vulnerability and agency, and dependent on the positioning of plaintiff and defendant. In court narratives, geographical places are made relevant, including the locations where the alleged rapes took place. Court narratives of rape include highly ambivalent connotations with place in relation to vulnerability and agency, distinguished by different narratives and outcomes in the various instances. The legal and social implications of our work should include an awareness of the relevance of place in relation to rape.     

“9/11 is alive and well” or how critical terrorism studies has sustained the 9/11 narrative

ABSTRACT

This article argues that despite engaging in a powerful critique of the construction of the attacks of 11 September 2001 (or “9/11”) as temporal break, critical terrorism scholars have sustained and reproduced this same construction of “9/11”. Through a systematic analysis of the research articles published in Critical Studies on Terrorism, this article illustrates how critical scholars have overall failed to extricate themselves from this dominant narrative, as they inhabit the same visual, emotional and professional landscape as those they critique. After examining how CTS has reproduced but also renegotiated this narrative, the article concludes with what Michel Foucault would describe as an “effective history” of the attacks – in this case, a personal narrative of how the attacks did not constitute a moment of personal rupture but nonetheless later became a backdrop to justify my scholarship and career. It ends with a renewal of Maya Zeyfuss’ call to forget “9/11”.