Translating Rhetoric to Reality: The Future of Family and Children's Services

These remarks were first prepared by the author for the inauguration of the Marion Elizabeth Blue Endowed Professorship in Children and Families at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. They were delivered on October 5, 1999, and originally appeared as a monograph published by the University of Michigan School of Social Work in December 1999. They are reprinted here by permission.

Nation, Narration and Islam: Memory and Governmentality in Germany

This article analyses narrations of German memories in relation to the incorporation of Islam into Germany. Memory narratives are not approached from the angle of identity, but as part of the continuous business of rationalizing politics inside and beyond the state. The citational use of narratives authorizes interventions in the process of government by constituting its objects, determining the means and aims of government and defining its authority. Narratives are a governmental practice, i.e. they connect politics narrowly defined with individual conduct, since narratives allow determination of a social context and what constitutes adequate behaviour within it. In this way, they help to orient practices of freedom. Acts such as the cultivating of an ethics of interreligious competition, involvement in specific forms of dialogue, or activism against Islamophobia and anti-Semitism derive meaning in part through such narratives, while simultaneously contributing new meaning.

Unnatural Narration beyond Postmodernist Alterities

Postmodernism has frequently employed unnatural narration with the aim to disturb and subvert conventionalized reading practices. Postmodernist discourses thus widely associate the unnatural with alterity, marginality and the suppressed. In this paper, I caution against such a perspective, which threatens to unduly limit our understanding of the broad variety of relations between natural and unnatural narrative on the one hand, and of the multiple possible functions of unnatural narratives on the other. Taking my cue from the use of unnatural narration in a number of recent novels, like Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000), Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), or Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2001), I will argue that a postmodernist approach which foregrounds ontological and epistemological questions and emphasizes alterity and subversion remains blind to some of the pragmatic implications that are the main concern of the unnatural narratives under consideration. This not only begs the question whether and in how far such a shift from ontological and epistemological towards pragmatic concerns constitutes a move beyond postmodernism, but also calls for a reconsideration of some of our widely established theories and assumptions about unnatural narratives.

Timely Tenses: Considering Present Tense Narration

When the jury of the Man Booker Prize 2010 chose three novels for their short-list that were written in present tense they earned some harsh criticism. To some, like Philipp Pullman, present tense narration seemed to be no more than an annoying fad, “a silly affectation,” which he criticises as a limitation to narrative possibility.1 Nevertheless, present tense narration is spreading fast, not only among Booker Prize nominees and winners. Indeed, it has become so common that it hardly seems to draw much attention anymore. But what is the appeal of present tense narration to contemporary authors? What effect does the choice of present tense narration have on the ways stories are told and read? This paper will address and compare the use of present tense narration in recent British novels by authors such as Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies), Ali Smith (Hotel World, The Accidental ), Tom McCarthy (C) and others, looking for similarities and differences in their respective narrative rationale. In view of the heterogeneous and complex use of present tense in contemporary fiction, I would like to suggest, merely pointing to the pace of contemporary life and the simultaneity of new communication media does not suffice to adequately address a phenomenon that has become a characteristic feature of 21st century narration. 1 Laura Roberts. “Philip Pullman and Philip Hensher criticise Booker Prize for including present tense novels.” The Telegraph. 11. Sept. 2010.

Flandria Borealis : Eigentliche Verzeichnus der Graefschafft Flandern, wie dieselbige uff der kanten ins NordOosten gegen Selant zu gelegen, an welchem ort die Statische Armey ihren ersten einfall gethan, mit beigefugter Narration oder erzehlung was sich von anfang Maiens uff jeder platzen zugetragen, Im Iahr Christi 1604

Bibliogr. Nachweis: Geschichtsblätter / Hogenberg, Nr. 372