NEGOTIATING THE LIFE NARRATIVE

This article explores two methodological issues that arise when researchers involve the women they study in the construction of life narratives. These issues are examined in the context of an interview-derived, life-narrative study of an African American social worker. First, the tension between presenting a neatly unified identity in a written text and acknowledging the contradictions within any person's life story are discussed from both the researcher's and participant's vantage point. The second issue addresses the dilemma that arises when the researcher and the research participant disagree about the meanings and interpretations garnered from the participant's life story. I contend that it is precisely at this moment that the research process has the potential to become a dialogue between theorists and that scholars can incorporate a woman's own theorizing about her life in the research. In concluding, several methodological suggestions are offered as broad guidelines for researchers planning a life-narrative study.     

THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF THE BIOLOGICAL NARRATIVE

Abstract. A cell/molecular biologist challenges the thesis that science and religion are two ways of experiencing and interpreting the world and explores instead the possible ways that the modern biological worldview might serve as a resource for religious perspectives. Three concepts—meaning, valuation, and purpose—are argued to be central to the entire biological enterprise, and the continuation of this enterprise is regarded as a sacred religious trust.     

叙事研究的方法论意义

叙事研究有着从客观主义到构成主义(constructivism)的认识论背景,叙事研究的方法分为编码主题分析和意义诠释两大类,最后重点总结了叙事研究的方法论意义。叙事研究是研究人类思想的一条可供选择的道路,而纯粹的客观的量化的研究方法去研究人类思想的某些方面并非是最好的选择。叙事研究中研究者和被试互相影响,叙事研究的平民性,叙事研究打开了研究者的思路,丰富了研究者对问题的理解。     

INTERPRETING THE VISIBLE TRACES OF THERESIENSTADT 1

Starting from the citation of a notorious Nazi propaganda film about Theresienstadt in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, this article proceeds to inquire into that film itself and then into Un Vivant qui Passe, Claude Lanzmann’s filmed interview with the official representative of the International Red Cross, who filed a report in 1944 verifying the conditions in Theresienstadt. Not only because the Nazi propaganda film was made with the participation of a Jewish director, but also because the Jews in the film had to perform their daily lives for the cameras, it is difficult to make conclusive statements about the attitudes of the persons depicted; there are a number of obstructions to coming to terms with the visual evidence. With reference to the work of Giorgio Agamben, Primo Levi and others, this article addresses the question of how this filmed document complicates traditional tendencies in readings of Holocaust images.     

THE FOUR JAZZ SINGERS: MAPPING THE JEWISH ASSIMILATION NARRATIVE

The 1927 movie The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson—famously ad-libbing synch dialogue, infamously appearing in blackface—has spawned three remakes: a 1952 and a 1980 movie starring Danny Thomas and Neil Diamond, respectively; and a 1959 television drama starring Jerry Lewis.1 The 1927 Jazz Singer was directed by Alan Crosland, the 1952 version by Michael Curtiz, the 1959 version by Ralph Nelson, and the 1980 version by Richard Fleischer. View all notes While none of the remakes can possibly match the singular importance of the original, arguably the cinematic ur-text of the Jewish assimilation narrative (not to mention of the American sound film), taken together the four films function as a compelling “metaphor for Jewish modernization.”2 Hoberman, “Deracinatin' Rhythm,” 1, 3–31. My “ur-text” designation for the 1927 Jazz Singer is based on its unrivaled sociocultural impact rather than on its chronological priority. Several other popular works dealing with Jewish assimilation preceded the Jolson-starring film. British playwright Israel Zangwill's The Melting Pot (1908) “first articulated the ideology upon which America's grand assimilation narrative of assimilation was built” (Brook, Something Ain't Kosher Here, 22). Noted novels on the subject include Mary Antin's The Promised Land (1912), Abraham Cahan's The Rise of David Levinsky (1917), Fanny Hurst's Humoresque (1919), and Anzia Yezierska's Hungry Hearts (1920). The latter two of these were adapted for the screen in the early 1920s, as, in the late 1920s, was Ann Nichol's 1924 play Abie's Irish Rose. Samuel Raphaelson's short story Day of Atonement, (1925) and his stage play The Jazz Singer (1926) provided the source material for the 1927 film version. View all notes Beyond the ethnically specific insights the films provide, their variations on the theme of an aspiring Jewish pop singer's conflict with his sternly religious father have much to say, individually and collectively, about continuity and change in American culture and society during the four films' six-decade span. Through social-historical and textual analysis, this essay further examines how identity issues raised by the four Jazz Singers continue to resonate among a Jewish people beset, perhaps more than ever, by the double bind of difference.     

CHANGING THE PAST: RETROCAUSALITY AND NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION

Abstract: This article is a reply to Jeanne Peijnenburg's argument for retrocausality in “Shaping Your Own Life.” Although it is perfectly possible to make sense of the way Peijnenburg deals with the subject of changing the past, there is no need to think this implies retrocausality.     

INTERPRETING THE MEASUREMENT OF CHANGE IN ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH1

Numerous advances have been made in the last two decades in the measurement as well as in the conceptualization of change. Golembiewski, Billingsley, and Yeager (1976) conceptualized change as: (1) gamma change—subjects change their understanding of the variable being measured; (2) beta change—subjects recalibrate the measurement scale; and, (3) alpha change—change detected with a consistent measurement scale (i.e., no beta change) and for which gamma change has been ruled out. The present research examined these types of change by administering the Survey of Organizations questionnaire to a sample of military trainers at Time₁ (N₁, = 222) and Time₂ (N₂= 242) with no intervention. This design may be referred to as two premeasures of an abbreviated time series design. The results are discussed within the context of the alpha, beta, gamma change typology. After ruling out gamma change, the results revealed that alpha and beta change could be distinguished from each other and that beta change had been measured. The potential causes of the detected beta change (i.e., the rival hypotheses affecting internal validity) are analyzed. The implications of these results are discussed for the present research as well as for other empirical investigations of organizational change.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOLED NARRATIVE COMPETENCE AMONG SECOND GRADERS

The ability to produce schooled narrative is closely related to students' literacy development and school success. This study examined young children's communicative competence in schooled narrative and the nature of its development. Participants were 21 second graders in a literature-based classroom. Four stories were collected from each child at equal intervals of the school year through a dictation procedure that taps their discursive knowledge of schooled narrative. These stories were analyzed for inclusion of a variety of linguistic markers that embody three essential features of schooled narrative - autonomy, conventionality, and specialized grammar. Results showed that participants demonstrated more familiarity with conventionality than with the other two features of schooled narrative. Their understanding of specialized grammar was particularly nascent. There was also considerable variation in their discursive competence in schooled narrative. Further, significant changes were observed during the school year in the children's knowledge of autonomy, but not conventionality or specialized grammar. Taken together, these findings suggest that the development of schooled narrative competence is non-uniform, feature-specific, unstable, and complex.     

THE CONSTRUCTION OF SITUATION MODELS IN NARRATIVE COMPREHENSION:

Abstract— In this article, we propose and test a model of how readers construct representations of the situations described in simple narratives the event-indexing model. According to the event-indexing model, events are the focal points of situations conveyed in narratives and are connected in memory along five dimensions time, space, protagonist, causality, and intentionality. The results of a verb-clustering task provide strong support for the event-indexing model.     

THE EFFECTS OF NARRATIVE AND EXPOSITORY ORGANIZATIONAL INSTRUCTION ON SIXTH‐GRADE CHILDREN'S COMPREHENSION OF EXPOSITORY AND NARRATIVE PROSE

Fifty‐six sixth‐grade students were randomly assigned to four instructional groups. These groups were defined by crossing two levels of instruction, organizational and traditional, with two levels of text type, expository and narrative. After four days of instruction the members of each group were randomly assigned to the eight testing conditions which were defined by three factors, instruction (organizational, traditional), text type (narrative or expository), organization (intact, scrambled). Students read passages, answered multiple choice questions, and wrote summaries of the passage. Results indicated that the students who received the organizational instruction wrote better summaries than students who received traditional instruction.