What is it about?

The insights and findings of academic research on narrative can be very useful for professionals working with storytelling. However, there is still a gap between the theory and practice of stories. Applied narratology tries to bridge this gap and establish a feedback loop between storytelling practitioners and scholars of narrative.

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Why is it important?

Professionals working with storytelling and scholars of narrative could learn a lot from each other. Research results could improve storytelling practices, but also make people more aware of the persuasive and sometimes dangerous power of storytelling. The problems with and questions about the uses of narrative among professionals such as consultants, medical professionals, and strategists could also inform new research. In this introduction to a special issue on applied narratology, we discuss how such a feedback loop between theory and practice can be established.

Perspectives

I hope that this introduction and the special issue will help bring storytelling professionals and scholars of narrative together. Having been on both sides of that divide myself (with experience both as a storytelling consultant, and as a scholar of narrative), I really think a dialogue between these two groups could bring about better, more immediately relevant and interesting research, as well as more realistic and ethically sustainable practices of storytelling. It was a great pleasure to work towards this goal with the scholars whose work we included in the special issue. I learned a lot from editing, together with my great co-editors, their research reports on the uses of storytelling in medicine, criminology, organizations, politics and information system development.

Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

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This page is a summary of: Applied Narratology, Narrative Inquiry, December 2024, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/ni.34.2.
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