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Citation: 

Bruner, Jerome S. “Past and Present as Narrative Constructions.” In Narration, Identity and Historical Consciousness, edited by Jürgen Straub, 23-43. New York: Berghahn Books, 2005.

Abstract/Summary: 

Neither empiricist knowledge gained through the senses nor a rationalist’s knowledge gained through absolute truths afford an understanding of how ordinary people give meaning to their experiences. The scientific method is also not the answer to explain how we understand the world. The author states that there are universals when understanding the world around us and these are essential to living cooperatively in a culture. The author continues with ten such universals of the narrative construction of meaning that we call ‘reality.’ Understanding is domain specific, therefore if one understands history that does not mean that they necessarily have an understanding of other domains such as biology or political science. The first narrative discussed by the author is the structure of a committed time, which accounts for events that unfold over time but are not dictated by a clock or a calendar but rather by the unfolding of events. The second narrative deals with genres and how narratives fall within particular genre spectrums. The third discusses how narratives concern what people do and what happens to them. The fourth concerns how narratives do not have a singular meaning but are in fact a hermeneutic composition. The fifth concerns how a narrative must breach a canonical script and the construal of history is tempting since it is so new. The sixth reference for narratives concerns the ambiguity of reference as we check the facts of the narratives, as they are functions of the story. The seventh narrative deals with how imperative genres are to characterizing a text or how a text is construed. According to the author, genres are culturally specific ways of envisaging and communicating about the human condition. The eighth deals with how narratives are vehicles of changing norms. The ninth deals with narrative negotiation wherein which there are different versions of history and they rarely need be consolidated. The final narrative deals with the accrual of history. In the chapter the author attempted to use narrative principles in describing the world’s ‘reality.’ 

Source/Credit: 
Erika Smith