Telling Stories: The Use of Personal Narratives in the Social Sciences and History - Couverture souple

Maynes, Mary Jo; Pierce, Jennifer L.; Laslett, Barbara

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0801473926 ISBN 13 : 9780801473920

Editeur : Cornell University Press, 2008

Synopsis

In Telling Stories, Mary Jo Maynes, Jennifer L. Pierce, and Barbara Laslett argue that personal narratives--autobiographies, oral histories, life history interviews, and memoirs--are an important research tool for understanding the relationship between people and their societies. Gathering examples from throughout the world and from premodern as well as contemporary cultures, they draw from labor history and class analysis, feminist sociology, race relations, and anthropology to demonstrate the value of personal narratives for scholars and students alike.

Telling Stories explores why and how personal narratives should be used as evidence, and the methods and pitfalls of their use. The authors stress the importance of recognizing that stories that people tell about their lives are never simply individual. Rather, they are told in historically specific times and settings and call on rules, models, and social experiences that govern how story elements link together in the process of self-narration. Stories show how individuals' motivations, emotions, and imaginations have been shaped by their cumulative life experiences. In turn, Telling Stories demonstrates how the knowledge produced by personal narrative analysis is not simply contained in the stories told; the understanding that takes place between narrator and analyst and between analyst and audience enriches the results immeasurably.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Mary Jo Maynes is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Taking the Hard Road: Life Course and Class Identity in French and German Workers' Autobiographies of the Industrial Era and author or coeditor of several other books.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Cornell University Press
• Date d'édition: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0801473926
• ISBN 13: 9780801473920
• Reliure: Broché
• Langue: anglais
• Nombre de pages: 200
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible