Description
Book SynopsisThis volume brings together writers from a variety of disciplines to explore and illustrate the possibilities of new narrative forms in social research. The book is arranged into four areas of concern: representation, subjectivity, critique, and postmodern discourse.
Trade ReviewWhat can fiction add to our repertoire as communication teachers and researchers? Anna Banks' and Stephan Banks' Fiction and Social Research: By Ice or Fire is filled with answers...Firmly grounded in the new theories of ethnographic research writing discussed and illustrated in anthropology journals during the last ten years, Banks and Banks have produced a collection of essays that extend the communication scholars' research reporting options. Both beginning and more experienced investigators will find insightful narrative examples tucked away in nearly every chapter....The authors demonstrate practices often minimally reported in communcation journals. -- Reta A. Gilbert, Eastern Washington University * Review of Communication, (2002) *
The book's value as a resource for researchers and other writers is also magnified by the editors' logical, clearly explained organization of their material and by their erudite and sophisticated theoretical introduction. This is an important book on a topic whose significance is sure to keep growing in the years ahead. -- Paul Messaris, Univ of Pennsylvania * Communication Theory, Aug. 2000 *
Table of Contentschapter 1 Preface chapter 2 Acknowledgments chapter 3 Series Editor's Preface chapter 4 1. Stephen P. Banks and Anna Banks, The Struggle Over Facts and Fictions chapter 5 Part 1: Narratives of Representation chapter 6 2. Robert Hopper, Flirtations: Conversational Analysis From Fiction and Life chapter 7 3. Sandra L. Haarsager, Stories That Tell It Like It Is? Fiction Techniques and Prize-Winning Journalism chapter 8 4. Michelle Miller, (Re)presenting Voices in Dramatically Scripted Research chapter 9 5. Eugene Valentine and Kristin Bervig Valentine, Dead or Alive, You're Going to Teixido: The Teller and the Tale chapter 10 Part 2: Narratives of Understanding chapter 11 6. Robert L. Krizek, Lessons: What the Hell Are We Teaching the Next Generation Anyway?; chapter 12 7. Christine Elizabeth Kiesinger, Portrait of an Anorexic Life chapter 13 8. Leigh Berger, Silent Movies: Scenes from a Life chapter 14 9. Sandra Coyle, Dancing with the Chameleon chapter 15 Part 3: Narratives of Suspicion chapter 16 10. Anna Banks, Some People Would Say I Tell Lies chapter 17 11. Shawn Michelle Smith, On the Pleasures of Ruined Pictures chapter 18 12. Eric M. Eisenberg, From Anxiety to Possibility: Poems 1987-1997 chapter 19 Part 4: Narratives of Vulnerability chapter 20 13. Simon Gottschalk, Postmodern Sensibilities and Ethnographic Possibilities chapter 21 14. Stephen Linstead, Dishcloth of Minerva: Absence, Presence, and Metatheory in the Everyday Practice of Research chapter 22 15. Stephen P. Banks, The Tioga Tapes chapter 23 Index
