Toward engaged narratology: Critical and embodied close reading and social justice in a narrative medicine classroom

Ovaska, Anna

doi:10.1075/ni.24029.ova

Article published In: Applied Narratology
Edited by Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar, Laura Karttunen and Anna Ovaska
[Narrative Inquiry 34:2] 2024
► pp. 262–280

Get fulltext from our e-platform

Download PDF

Download EPUB

Toward engaged narratology

Critical and embodied close reading and social justice in a narrative medicine classroom

Anna Ovaska | Tampere University | University of Helsinki

Published online: 22 November 2024

https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.24029.ova

Abstract

In recent years, strands of contemporary narrative theory have taken a turn toward a politically, socially, and environmentally conscious field of study that could be characterized as ‘engaged narratology.’ Creating and disseminating knowledge about how narratives work, these theories emphasize that narrative forms and strategies are neither universal nor neutral; they carry out, but can also challenge, systems of inequality and marginalization. They also suggest new combinations of theory and activism, pedagogical interventions, and community engagement models, offering tools to create social justice. This article outlines some of these recent developments and reflects on the possibilities of ‘engaged narratology’: how it relates to engaged research and what kinds of practices have been developed so far. As an example of engaged narratological work, it discusses the shared close reading of Roxane Gay’s book Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body () in a multidisciplinary narrative medicine classroom.

Keywords: engaged narratology, applied narratology, feminist narratology, political narratologies, feminist pedagogy, literature pedagogy, narrative medicine, social justice, close reading, embodiment

Article outline

Introduction
Engaged research and political narratologies
- Tools for engaged narratology
Reading Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body in a narrative medicine classroom
- Reading pain: First impressions
- Metanarrative reading instructions and tools for reading: Discussion of the text
Conclusion
Notes
References

References (48)

References

Bager, A. & McClellan, J. (2024). Organizational small storymaking: creating dialogic change through ‘small story openings.’ Narrative Inquiry, 2(34).

Caracciolo, M. (2014). The experientiality of narrative: An enactivist approach. De Gruyter.

Charon, R., DasGupta, S., Hermann, N., Irvine, C., Marcus, E. R., Colsn, E. R., Spencer, D., & Spiegel, M. (Eds.) (2017). The principles and practice of narrative medicine. Oxford University Press.

Charon, R., Irvine, C., Oforlea, A. N., Colón, E. R., Smalletz, C., & Spiegel, M. (2021). Racial justice in medicine: Narrative practices toward equity. Narrative, 2(29), 160–177.

DasGupta, S. (2017). The politics of the pedagogy: Cripping, queering and unhoming health humanities. In R. Charon, S. DasGupta, N. Hermann, C. Irvine, E. R. Marcus, E. R. Colsn, D. Spencer, M. Spiegel (Eds.), The principles and practice of narrative medicine (pp. 137–153). Oxford University Press.

Dawson, P. & Mäkelä, M. (2022). Introduction. Narrative today: Telling stories in a post-truth world. In P. Dawson & M. Mäkelä (Eds.), The Routledge companion to narrative theory (pp. 1–7). Routledge.

Esin, C. & Lounasmaa, A. (2020). Narrative and ethical (in)action: creating spaces of resistance with refugee-storytellers in the Calais ‘Jungle’ camp. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 4(23), 391–403.

Evans, B. & Cooper, C. (2016). Reframing fatness. Critiquing ’obesity.’ In S. J. Atkinson, J. Macnaughton, J. Richards, A. Whitehead & A. Woods (Eds.), The Edinburgh companion to the critical medical humanities (pp. 225–241). Edinburgh University Press.

Frank, A. W. (1995). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and ethics. The University of Chicago Press.

Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary ed.). Continuum.

Gay, R. (2017). Hunger: A memoir of (my) body. HarperCollins.

Ghosal, T., Gebauer, C. & Busl, G. (2021). Episode 2: What is narrative for social justice? II. Narrative for Social Justice Initiative (N4SJ). International Society for the Study of Narrative.

Harinen, K. (2024 forthcoming). Vers un instrument pédagogique intersectionnel et transformatif : les cercles de lecture antiracistes en classe de FLS. In H. Hakeem & C. Lebrec. Arborescences. Revue d’études littéraires, linguistiques et pédagogiques de langue française. Au-delà de l’inclusion : pour une pédagogie critique, intersectionnelle et décolonisante.

Heney, V. & Poleykett, B. (2021). The impossibility of engaged research: Complicity and accountability between researchers, ‘publics’ and institutions. Sociology of Health & Illness S1(44), 179–194.

Herman, D. (2009). Basic elements of narrative. Wiley-Blackwell.

Hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge

Hyvärinen, M. (2021). Toward a theory of counter-narratives: Narrative contestation, cultural canonicity, and tellability. In K. Lueg & M. Wolff Lundholt (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Counter-Narratives (pp. 17–29). Routledge.

James, E. & Morel, E. (Eds.) (2020). Environment and narrative: New directions in econarratology. The Ohio State University Press.

Kinnunen, E., Meretoja, H. & Kosonen, P. (2024). Applying the approach of narrative agency: A dialogue between theory, reading group practices, and analysis of participants’ experiences. Narrative Inquiry, 2(34).

Korthals Altes, L. & Moenandar, S-J. (2024). By Way of Introduction — Reflections on Narrative and Values, and the Value of Narratives. In S-J. Moenandar & B. P. van Heusden (Eds.), Narrative Values, the Value of Narratives (pp. 1–41). De Gruyter.

Lanser, S. (1986). Toward a feminist narratology. Style, 20(3), 341–363.

(2018). Till death do us part: Embodying narratology. In Z. Dinnen & R. Warhol (Eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Narrative Theories (pp. 117–131). Edinburgh University Press.

Levine, C. (2015). Forms: whole, rhythm, hierarchy, network. Princeton University Press.

Lewinsky, M. (2021). Roxane Gay on how to write about trauma. Vanity Fair February 18, 2021.

Lueg, K. & Wolff Lundholt, M. (Eds.). (2021). Routledge Handbook of Counter-Narratives. Routledge.

Mäkelä, M. (2018). Lessons from the Dangers of Narrative project: Toward a story-critical narratology. Tekstualia, 1(4), 175–186.

(2023). The Campfires of storytelling consultancy. Narrare, Narrative Studies seminar April 25, 2023.

Mäkelä, M. & Björninen, S. (2022). My story, your narrative: Scholarly terms and popular usage. In P. Dawson & M. Mäkelä (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory (pp. 11–23). Routledge.

Mäkelä, M., Björninen, S., Karttunen, L., Nurminen, M., Raipola, J. & Rantanen, T. (2021). Dangers of Narrative: A critical approach to narratives of personal experience in contemporary story economy. Narrative, 2(29), 139–159.

Mäkelä, M., & Meretoja, H. (2022). Critical approaches to the storytelling boom. Poetics Today, 2(43), 191–218.

Meretoja, H. (2018). The ethics of storytelling: narrative hermeneutics, history, and the possible. Oxford University Press.

(2021). A dialogics of counter-narratives. In K. Lueg & M. Wolff Lundholt (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Counter-Narratives (pp. 30–42). London: Routledge.

(2022). Implicit narratives and narrative agency: evaluating pandemic storytelling. Narrative Inquiry, 2(33), 288–316.

Metzl, J. M., & Hansen, H. (2014). Structural competency: Theorizing a new medical engagement with stigma and inequality. Social Science & Medicine, 1031, 126–133.

Moenandar, S-J., Karttunen, L. & Ovaska, A. (2024). Applied narratology. Narrative Inquiry, 1(34).

Moya, P. (2016). The social imperative: race, close reading, and contemporary literary criticism. Stanford University Press.

Norrick, N. (2005). The dark side of tellability. Narrative Inquiry, 15(2), 323–343.

Olson, G. & Copland, S. (2016). Towards a politics of form. European Journal of English Studies, 3(20), 207–221.

Phelan, J. (2022). Toward a rhetorical narrative medicine: Or, corpus, close reading, and the cases of Oates’s “Hospice/Honeymoon” and Ward’s “On Witness and Respair.” In P. Dawson & M. Mäkelä (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory (pp. 299–312). Routledge.

Punday, D. (2003). Narrative bodies: Toward a corporeal narratology. Palgrave Macmillan.

Raipola, J. (2020). Kertomus päivässä pitää lääkärin loitolla. In M. Mäkelä, S. Björninen, V. Hämäläinen, L. Karttunen, M. Nurminen, J. Raipola, T. Rantanen (Eds.), Kertomuksen vaarat: kriittisiä ääniä tarinataloudessa. Vastapaino.

Rosenblatt, L. (1995). Literature as exploration. 5th edition. MLA.

Scarry, E. (1985). The body in pain: the making and unmaking of the world. Oxford University Press.

Spiegel, M. & Spencer, D. (2017). This is what we do, and these things happen: Literature, experience, emotion, and relationality in the classroom. In R. Charon, S. DasGupta, N. Hermann, C. Irvine, E. R. Marcus, E. R. Colsn, D. Spencer, M. Spiegel (Eds.), The principles and practice of narrative medicine (pp. 37–59). Oxford University Press.

Stanier, J. (2022). An introduction to engaged phenomenology. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 3(53), 226–242.

Warhol, R., & Lanser, S. (2015). Introduction. In Warhol, R., & Lanser, S. (Eds.), Narrative theory unbound: Queer and feminist interventions (pp. 1–20). Ohio State University Press.

Warhol, R. (1986). Toward a theory of the engaging narrator: Earnest interventions in Gaskell, Stowe, and Eliot. PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 5(101), 811–818.

(2003). Having a good cry: Effeminate feelings and pop-culture forms. Ohio State University Press.