Theme: Narrative and Authority

“Today, literary authorship finds itself enmeshed in a broad field of narrative interests and contests, and a whole range of claims to narrative authority. Narrative authority refers to the teller’s power and capability to control narrative resources and situations (de Fina & Georgakopoulou 2012 Analyzing Narrative). It determines who gets to tell their story or the stories of others, and more broadly, who can “control the narrative”, as the political catchphrase has it. In contemporary culture, the public face of literary authorship is more and more defined by narrative authority, which puts authors on a par with influencers, political actors, and storytellers in other societal areas and across media.

As the balance of narrative and authority is shifting, we invite the participants of the conference to contribute to the reframing of these concepts and their analytical and practical scope. What – and who – is an author? How have narrative authority and literary authorship evolved over time? How can theory and methods adapt to the changing forms of authorship and narrative authority? Who gets to tell their own or another’s story? What forms of authority shape the literary field, or the public sphere?  How do digital narrative environments and machine-generated storytelling shape narrative authority? How is interpretive authority established and distributed? How are political and narrative authority intertwined?” Call for papers on the ENN website.

More information about the conference on the Tampere University website.