Time and Place: Academic year 2010-2011; 96, Boulevard Raspail – 75006 Paris / Salle Lombard
Persons in charge of the seminar: Annick Louis (Université de Reims), Simone Morgagni (EHESS/CNRS & Università di Bologna), John Pier (Université de Tours), Philippe Roussin (CNRS), Jean-Marie Schaeffer (CNRS/EHESS)
Affiliated researchers: Marika Moisseeff (CNRS), Olivier Caïra (IUT Evry & EHESS)
The program is available here.
Over the past thirty years, the study of narrative, which had been based on semiotic and narratological perspectives that remained centered on literary texts, has turned progressively toward the analysis of narratives linked to cultural products as well as to the theory of communication, pedagogy, sociology, cognition, therapy, memory, law, politics, language acquisition and artificial intelligence. The question of the relations between uses, practices and available theories thus shows up in the form of a lack of adequacy or of a possible discrepancy between contemporary uses of narrative and theories of narrative. This also means thinking about the influence of the mediumon narrative and thus taking account of the question of techniques and technologies. Furthermore, the question of uses also turns back on theory with significant consequences.
During 2010-2011, the seminar will explore three areas related to problems taken up during the previous academic year.
The first sessions will be devoted to reflecting on the relations between narrative and the social and human sciences based on the idea that in our disciplines, narrative is an important stake in two distinct ways. On the one hand are the objects of research: we will be looking at the uses that various disciplines in the social and human sciences make of the narratives they come into contact with in the course of their work. On the other hand is the very writing of our work, which often requires a narrative exposition of the research being conducted: biographies of the persons concerned; summaries of procedures; etc.
Secondly, the seminar will return to narrative forms in the media: television, cinema, video games. Some of these media are relatively new, while others are currently undergoing major renewal that trigger novel cognitive stakes while at the same time seeking new ties with the classical narrative tradition narrative.
The last sessions of this year’s seminar, closing the two years of reflection on the new uses and functions of narrative, will be devoted to exploring various ways in which narrative is inscribed in the social.
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