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“Relevance” is one of the most widely used buzz words in academic and other socio-political discourses and institutions today, which constantly ask us to “be relevant.” To date, there is no profound scholarly conceptualization of the term, however, which is widely accepted in the humanities. Relevance and Narrative Research closes this gap by initiating a discussion which turns the vaguely defined evaluative tool “relevance” into an object of study. The contributors to this volume do so by firmly situating questions of relevance in the context of narrative theory. Briefly put, they ask either “What can ‘relevance’ do for narrative research?” or “What can narrative research do for better understanding ‘relevance?’” or both. The basic assumption is that relevance is a relational term. Further assuming that most (if not all) relations which human beings encounter within their cultures are narratively constructed, the contributors to this volume suggest that reflections on narrative and narrative research are fundamental to any endeavor to conceptualize notions of “relevance.”
Matei Chihaia is professor of French and Spanish literature at the University of Wuppertal.Katharina Rennhak is professor of English literature at the University of Wuppertal.
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Dialectics of Relevance and Narrative ResearchMatei Chihaia and Katharina RennhakPart 1. The Politics of Narrative RelevanceChapter 1. The (Ir)Relevance of NarratologySusan S. LanserChapter 2. Disciplining Relevance: On Manifest and Latent Functions of NarrativesAndreas MahlerPart 2. The Logic of Narrative RelevanceChapter 3. Relevant Logics, Counterfactual Worlds, and the Understanding of NarrativeLuis GalvánChapter 4. Relevance Theory and Literary Studies—and Some Thoughts on Paul Torday’s The Irresistible Inheritance of WilberforceCarsten BreulChapter 5. Communication, Life, and Dangerous Things: On Relevance and Tellability in PicturesMichael RantaPart 3. The Relativity of RelevanceChapter 6. The Relevance of Irrelevance in Mimetic Narratives: Guess What…Raphaël BaroniChapter 7. Narrating Random Probes: The Ideal of “Slice-of-Life”Sebastian DomschPart 4. (Ir)Relevance and Narrative GenresChapter 8. Relevance Theory in Contemporary Narratology: Processing Meaning from Narrative TextsSonja KlimekChapter 9. “Less is More”: Narrative Strategies of Reduction and the Construct of (Ir)Relevance in the Works of Three French Minimalist AuthorsSusanne SchlünderChapter 10. The Relevance of Narrative Theory for the Study of Short Fiction: The Case of First-Person Present-Tense NarrationElke D’hokerIndexAbout the EditorsAbout the Contributors
Based on the premise that relevance—as a relational concept—is intrinsically embedded in narrative, this poignant, in-depth inquiry examines social, cultural, and institutional constructions of relevance using the tools of narrative theory. In a complementary meta-theoretical gesture, contributors to the volume apply, challengingly, the notion of relevance to narratology itself. A most timely and, dare I say, relevant study.