Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies Volume 11 (1993)

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https://hdl.handle.net/10323/3976

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Browsing Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies Volume 11 (1993) by Author "Jones, L. Gregory"

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    Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Rhetoric of Narratives: Exploring the Turns to Narrative in Recent thought and Discourses
    (Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1993) Bailis, Stanley; Gottlieb, Stephen; Klein, Julie Thompson; Gerber, Leslie E.
    This investigation of narrative in a variety of disciplines offers more than a survey. If the current intense interest in narrative represents yet another example of Romantic subjectivity asserting its claims against Enlightenment rationalism, then it is merely faddish. A deeper account of narrative's significance is being made, however. It insists that there is no non-narrative way of apprehending reality. For actions to be intelligible they require location in a coherent tradition. Such traditions are sustained by master narratives. Hence, narrative analysis challenges the very distinction between public rationality and private subjectivity; is anti-foundationalist and relativist: and recognises the plurality and particularity of major narrative traditions. Treating postmodernism, communications theory, disputes about non-narrative modes of discourse, and the fragmented character of contemporary narrative-based communities, the author focuses attention on what is genuinely revolutionary in the turn toward "story." Such theorists as Frederic Jameson, Alasdair Maclntyre, James Gustafson, John Milbank, and Hayden White are discussed.
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    The Virtues of Taking Time, Taking Time for the Virtues
    (Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1993) Bailis, Stanley; Gottlieb, Stephen; Klein, Julie Thompson; Gerber, Leslie E.
    The virtues are now of central concern to most ethicists. But confusions arise when important virtues like "justice" are discussed without reference to the narrative traditions (e.g., Christian or Libertarian) which give real context and specificity to virtues. Whatever one's narrative tradition, the virtues it elaborates and nurtures will only be vital if adherents of that tradition have the capacity for taking time for one another. The virtues are "a language" that enables us to describe our lives. Without time-consuming conversations (with fellow adherents and non-adherents) the self will remain either incompletely defined or self-deceived. The good life within a narrative tradition is a well-crafted life, one focused more on ends than means, a life of attentiveness rather than distraction. Invoking Neil Postman, Mother Theresa and other critics of American mass culture, the author describes the barriers placed before those who would take time for the virtues.