On Narrative and Sociology

Reed, John Shelton

doi:10.2307/2579214

Cited by 173 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…The major exception to this position, and a major influence on the new narrative approach, is Ricoeur (1979Ricoeur ( , 1981Ricoeur ( , 1984. 12 In psychology (Kemper 1984;Hales 1985;Bruner, 1986Bruner, , 1987Gergen and Gergen 1986;Sarbin 1986), in medicine (Williams 1984;Kleinman 1988), in psychoanalytic theory (Schafer 1981(Schafer , 1983Spence 1982), in education (Witherell and Noddings 1991), in philosophy (Maclntyre 1981, Walzer 1982, C. Taylor 1989, in political science (Hart 1989(Hart , 1990(Hart , 1991, in gender studies (Gordon 1986, Graham et al 1989, Maynes 1989, Personal Narratives Group 1989, Bell and Yalom 1990, Miller 1991, Zerilli 1991, in anthropology , Turner and Bruner 1986, Ortner 1991, and in sociology (Brown 1977, Somers 1986, Reed 1989. 13 See especially the "life stories" scholarship of Bertaux (1981), Bertaux and Kohli (1984), Freeman (1984), and L. Polanyi (1985), and Linde (1986).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation

Somers

1992

Social Science History

287

150

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The nineteenth-century English working class bears a most peculiar burden and embodies a most peculiar paradox. Like Auden’s academic warriors who spar with “smiles and Christian names,” historians, economists, and sociologists have pushed and prodded early nineteenth-century English working people into procrustean political positions to support or disconfirm Marx’s predictions of revolutionary class conflict erupting from the contradictions of capitalism. A Manichaean concern locks the debate into an impasse. Were early nineteenth-century workers revolutionary or reformist? Was there a class struggle in the industrial revolution? The questions remain unresolved. Yet, surely it is the history of English working peoples that has suffered from this burden of praising or burying Marxism through competing interpretations of their early stories?

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation

Somers

1992

Social Science History

287

150

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“…The comments they made during their plenary session are published along with those of Schwartz and Wilson in Contemporary Sociology. In addition, I am sure some of you remember John Shelton Reed's (1989) Southern Sociological Society presidential address, have used Becker's (1986) book, Writing for Sociologists, or have consulted back issues of Michael Schwalbe's (1993-97) newsletter, Writing Sociology.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inciting Sociological Thought by Studying the Deadhead Community: Engaging Publics in Dialogue

Adams

1998

Social Forces

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Abstract:We need to pay more attention to the process of being sociologists and less attention to rates of productivity. To support this statement, I present a case study of the processes in which I have been involved while studying Deadheads, fans of the former rock band, the Grateful Dead. To avoid negative sanctioning, I proceeded slowly with this research and therefore had time to engage students, the media, and Deadheads in sociological dialogue. As a result, my teaching, ability to communicate sociological ideas, opportunities to incite sociological thought, and data were enhanced. To fulfill the promise of sociology "to revolutionize how people think" (Johnson 1997), we need to engage publics in dialogue and to establish routine rewards for doing so. Article:After Jerry Garcia's death in August of 1995, 150 Deadheads wrote to me about their experiences grieving for him. Although these letters were chiefly interesting to me because they were filled with expressions of fear of loss of community and because Deadheads were mourning a public figure as a member of their family or at least as a personal friend, another theme stood out. Jerry was very busy after his death. He visited Deadheads in their dreams or communicated with them in creative symbolic ways, reassuring them about his well-being and their future survival.Well, I have to admit I was curious about whether Jerry would communicate with me. Just when I had decided I was not on his list, I dreamed that I was attending a Bob Dylan concert in a small venue. When Dylan stopped playing, he exited by walking down the aisle that passed by my seat. When he reached me, much to my surprise, he paused and said, "Are you Rebecca Adams?" When I responded in the affirmative, Dylan said, "I have a message for you from Jerry. He says, "finish your damn book."

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“…22 Nonfiction also makes use of various nonnarrative rhetorical techniques thought to be antithetical to nonfictional and scientific writing (cf. McCloskey 1985;Reed 1989). 23 On the concept of "narratee" see Chatman (1978: 150), who attributes the notion to Gerald Prince.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on the Role of Social Narratives in Working-Class Formation: Narrative Theory in the Social Sciences

Steinmetz¹

1992

Social Science History

122

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This article explores the role of social narratives in working-class formation. The primary goal of this exercise is to generate concepts for the comparative analysis of working-class identities and practices. My thesis is that more successful cases of working-class formation involve the elaboration of coherent narratives about individual and collective history, stories that are coordinated with one another and that are organized around the category of social class. In such narratives, events are selected for inclusion due to their relevance to social class, or they are excluded or deemphasized because of their irrelevance to class, and events are interpreted, emplotted, and evaluated in a way that emphasizes class rather than other possible constructs. By contrast, working-class formation is less pronounced where individual and collective narratives are based on alternative, nonclass forms of identity, such as nationality, gender, ethnicity, and race. Working-class formation is also weaker where individual narratives are asynchronous, where the individual and collective levels are not coordinated with one another, or where identities fail to attain narrative coherence.

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On Narrative and Sociology

Cited by 173 publications

References 0 publications

Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation

Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation

Inciting Sociological Thought by Studying the Deadhead Community: Engaging Publics in Dialogue

Reflections on the Role of Social Narratives in Working-Class Formation: Narrative Theory in the Social Sciences

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