Panel proposal for conference on "Life and Narrative" May 29-June 1

[Cyndi Dunn]

The American University of Paris, the University of Paris Diderot-Paris 
7, and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Narrative at St. 
Thomas University, are organizing a conference on "the productive 
interplay between life and narrative" to be held in Paris, May 29-June 
1, 2012.

More information about this conference can be found at:

http://www.fabula.org/actualites/life-and-narrative_45837.php

Proposed Panel: When Personal Narrative Meets Community/Institutional Genre

I would like to organize a panel for this meeting which would bring 
together a focus on personal narrative as a meaning-making activity with 
attention to genre as a set of structuring frameworks for discourse.I am 
soliciting papers which examine situations in which individuals are 
socialized to perform narratives of personal experience according to the 
generic framework of a social group or institution.The panel would focus 
on how newcomers are socialized, both explicitly and implicitly, into 
the generic norms of the speech community, on how they learn to tell a 
personal experience according to the rules and expectations of the 
community.How, in this process, does individual experience become 
structured into socially acceptable patterns upholding a shared moral order?

I am interested in situations such as self-help groups or certain types 
of religious communities in which people publically tell narratives of 
self-transformation in which the validity of that transformation may be 
measured by how well the narrative conforms to the generic frameworks of 
that community.Also of interest would be situations such as counseling 
in which narrating the self becomes a means of reshaping one's 
understanding of self and social relationships. How in these contexts 
does a person's self-definition become reshaped in transformative 
experience which culminates in the telling of that transformation?I 
would also be interested in situations in which persons are penalized if 
their self-narration fails to meet the generic expectations of an 
institutional authority.

If you are exploring a situation in which communities or institutions 
attempt to shape personal narratives according to a generic framework, I 
would be interested in hearing from you.Please reply off-list with an 
indication of your interest and send me a tentative abstract no later 
than Sept. 20.  Cyndi.Dunn at uni.edu

I look forward to hearing from others interested in these issues.

Cyndi Dunn

-- 
Cyndi Dunn
Dept. of Soc-Anth-Crim
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls IA 50614-0513
(319) 273-6251
Cyndi.Dunn at uni.edu