Browsing by Subject "Narrative"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Alzheimer's Disease Narratives and the Myth of Human Being
    (2012-12-11) Rieske, Tegan Echo; Schultz, Jane E.; Johnson, Karen Ramsay; Tilley, John J.
    The ‘loss of self’ trope is a pervasive shorthand for the prototypical process of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the popular imagination. Turned into an effect of disease, the disappearance of the self accommodates a biomedical story of progressive deterioration and the further medicalization of AD, a process which has been storied as an organic pathology affecting the brain or, more recently, a matter of genetic calamity. This biomedical discourse of AD provides a generic framework for the disease and is reproduced in its illness narratives. The disappearance of self is a mythic element in AD narratives; it necessarily assumes the existence of a singular and coherent entity which, from the outside, can be counted as both belonging to and representing an individual person. The loss of self, as the rhetorical locus of AD narrative, limits the privatization of the experience and reinscribes cultural storylines---storylines about what it means to be a human person. The loss of self as it occurs in AD narratives functions most effectively in reasserting the presence of the human self, in contrast to an anonymous, inhuman nonself; as AD discourse details a loss of self, it necessarily follows that the thing which is lost (the self) always already existed. The private, narrative self of individual experience thus functions as proxy to a collective human identity predicated upon exceptionalism: an escape from nature and the conditions of the corporeal environment.
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    Building communities through communication: Understanding community development success and failure using a narrative approach
    (2012-03-19) Bell, Anne Elizabeth; Dobris, Catherine A.; Goering, Elizabeth M.; Sandwina, Ronald M.
    This study uses narrative analysis to investigate public communication efforts of community development groups to provide a richer understanding of the indicators of group success or failure in this context. The subjects are participants of the Indiana HomeTown Competitiveness program, an initiative that seeks to develop local economic capacity to move rural communities beyond outdated economic models and generate more innovative, sustainable community development. Indiana HomeTown Competitiveness emphasizes four points: entrepreneurship, leadership, youth engagement, and local wealth or philanthropic giving. The impetus for this study is the pilot program’s need for a better understanding of the manner in which participating groups might generate engagement from external community members. To better understand the groups’ success or failure regarding public communication efforts, instances of seven pre-determined themes derived from narratives provided by group members are investigated. The themes, identified by existing research, include group relationships, group structure, group process, member attributes, external forces, group communication, and member emotions. This study uses a blend of quantitative and qualitative analysis to give broad perspective to successful identification of effective tactics which groups may use to engage community members in economic initiatives by means of public communication. Though the study is exploratory in nature, the findings indicate that group communication, relationships, and group structure are likely predictors of a group’s success or failure. The findings of this study also offer a reflection of actions that were successful and also actions that were not successful to program participants, and documents results for future program participants to use. The results also expand upon the available research regarding community development using communication theory. Using a narrative approach also identifies directions of further study to address the multiple discourses created by groups that give insight into community and group communication.
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    Greenwashed: Identity and Landscape at the California Missions
    (Achaeopress, 2015) Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth
    This paper explores the relationship of place and identity in the historical and contemporary contexts of the California mission landscapes, conceiving of identity as a category of both analysis and practice (Brubaker and Cooper 2000). The missions include twenty-one sites founded along the California coast and central valley in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The missions are all currently open to the public and regularly visited as heritage sites, while many also serve as active Catholic parish churches. This paper offers a reading of the mission landscapes over time and traces the materiality of identity narratives inscribed in them, particularly in ‘mission gardens’ planted during the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. These contested places are both celebrated as sites of California's origins and decried as spaces of oppression and even genocide for its indigenous peoples. Theorized as relational settings where identity is constituted through narrative and memory (Sommers 1994; Halbwachs 1992) and experienced as staged, performed heritage, the mission landscapes bind these contested identities into a coherent postcolonial experience of a shared past by creating a conceptual metaphor of ‘mission as garden’ that encompasses their disparities of emotional resonance and ideological meaning.
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    Narrative Theater to Examine and Mitigate Anti-Black Racism Within Occupational Therapy
    (Sage, 2023) Wasmuth, Sally; Milton, Cierra; Pritchard, Kevin; Johnson, Khalilah R.; Wakeford, Linn; Caldwell, Breonna; Peak, Kierra; Briggeman, Lauren; Johnson, Kelsey; Occupational Therapy, School of Health and Human Sciences
    Theater has long-standing roots in social justice and holds promise for reducing racist attitudes and behaviors. Objectives of this study were to (a) collect and theatrically portray narratives from Black occupational therapy students and practitioners to a national audience and (b) examine the impact of the theatrical performance on anti-Black racism among attendees. The Identity Development Evolution and Sharing (IDEAS) model guided translation of narratives into a filmed performance. Paired t-test of pre/post administration of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire–Stigma (AAQ-S) measured changes in stigma beliefs. Qualitative thematic analysis of an open-ended post-survey question elucidated experiences of the performance. The performance engendered significant decreases in stigma; qualitative data elucidated potential mechanisms of change. This study provides insight into experiences of anti-Black racism within occupational therapy and offers a promising means for occupational therapists to engage in anti-Black racism.
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    A Pence-ive narration of a gendered vice-presidency
    (2017-07) Deckard, Trent; Sheeler, Kristina
    This thesis analyzes the gender narrative surrounding the vice-presidency and the 2016 election. It reviews the traditional feminine gender roles assigned to the vice-presidency and as evidenced in Governor Mike Pence’s participation in a 60 Minutes interview, nomination speech at the 2016 national convention, and vice-presidential debate. Furthers the work of Bostdorff, who argued that the vice presidency has a traditional feminine role where vice-presidential figures and potential aspirants use strategies of celebration, confrontation, vindication, and submission to fulfill a gendered role in service to a highly masculine presidency. Suggests that the realities of the 2016 election allowed for these strategies, although in a different form given the nature of the campaign and a Trump candidacy.
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    Stories We Live By: Exploring Graphic Novels With High Schoolers
    (Taylor & Francis, 2023) Kulinski, Alexa R.; Herron School of Art and Design
    This article explores the graphic novels that emerged within the context of a pre-college course for high school students. After providing an overview of comics and graphic novels within education, I highlight pedagogical strategies and approaches for making comics and graphic novels. I then examine student work from the course with a particular focus on the final graphic stories they told, why they chose to tell those particular stories, and how they went about doing it. Examination of student work revealed that the self was a starting point for their narratives, students continually explored and pushed conventions of the artform, and students remixed dominant narrative arcs. The stories and artmaking strategies that emerged as a result of the course highlights how comics and graphic novels provide students the space to explore and voice what matters most to them, making them a valuable component of K-16 art education.