Description
Book SynopsisThis collection brings together essays that reflect on the nature of narrative, literary criticism and history from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, ranging from deconstruction, psychoanalysis and trauma theory, to narratology, technology, economics and aesthetics.
Trade Review"Acts of Narrative explores different facets of narrative with historical and thematic breadth, and each of the essays is a remarkable narrative act in its own right. Taken as a whole, the collection is a powerful demonstration of how the intersections between psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and performative theory change our understanding of narrative and its function in cultural life." -Ewa Plonowska Ziarek,University of Notre Dame
Table of ContentsPreface: The Place of Narrative CarolJacobs ix 1 J. Hillis Miller and the Task of the Critic Henry Sussman 2 Lying Against Death: Out of the Loop J. Hillis Miller 15 3 Waiting in the Wings Diane Elam 31 4 Parting Words: Trauma, Silence, and Survival Cathy Caruth 47 5 The Other Day: The Interpretation of Daydreams Rachel Bowlby 62 6 Difference Behind Similarity: Focalization in Third-Person Center-of-Consciousness and First-Person Retrospective Narration Dan Shen 81 7 The "Telepathy Effect": Notes toward a Reconsideration of Narrative Fiction Nicholas Royle 93 8 Trackings Tom Cohen 110 9 The Rape of the Lock: A Jacobite Aesthetics? Ronald Paulson 130 10 The Serpent in the Wilderness: Space, Place, and Landscape in the Eighteenth Century W J. T Mitchell 146 11 Narrative Discourse and a New Sense of Value: Meaning and Purpose in the Neoclassical Economics of Alfred Marshall Ronald Schleifer 157 12 Sidney's Technology: A Critique by Technology of Literary History Alan Liu 174 13 "Le Parjure," Perhaps: Storytelling and Lying ("abrupt breaches of syntax") Jacques Derrida 195
