Limits of Narrative

Since Roland Barthes' formula “international, transhistorical, transcultural, narration is there, like life itself” (Introduction à l'analyse structurale des récits, 1966), quoted again and again, the conviction that narrative is a universal category of cognition and representation that is indispensable for recognizing and dealing with reality has become increasingly prevalent. Recently, Yuval Noah Harari writes: “Narratives enable the construction of large human networks by using false memories, creating fictitious relationships or generating intersubjective realities. [...] The networks based on narratives made Homo sapiens the most powerful of all animals and gave him a decisive advantage over lions and mammoths, but also over other human species such as Neanderthals” (Y. N. Harari: Nexus. A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, 2024). Nowadays, the terms 'narrative' and 'story' appear everywhere in public discourse - from the search for “A New Narrative for Europe” to the “stories” on the homepages of companies such as Siemens or Johnson&Johnson to the “patient narratives” examined by Narrative Medicine.

In view of the rampant use of the term ‘narrative’, which often enough lacks a precise meaning, it is time to take a critical look at its limits. Is it perhaps true that we are currently experiencing a “mindless valorization of storytelling” (Peter Brooks: Seduced by Story.The Use and Abuse of Narrative, 2022)? The 8th ENN conference in Wuppertal (Germany) is dedicated to this reflection on the concept of narrative in order to sharpen it by defining its boundaries: Which phenomena cannot be appropriately labeled as 'narrative'? What are the boundaries and transitions between narrative and non-narrative formats? What are legitimate and illegitimate uses of narrative?

Keynote Lectures will be held by Monika Fludernik (Univ. Freiburg i.Br., GER) and Françoise Lavocat (Univ. Paris III, FR).

Panels:

Panel 1: “Inner Limits of Narratives: Narratives and Their Gaps” (Bohumil Fořt / Ondřej Sládek)

Panel 2: “Beyond Tellability. The Limits of Narrative in the Representation of Everyday Life” (Matthias Grüne / Antonius Weixler)

Panel 3: “Artificial Narration” (Stefan Iversen)

Panel 4: „Narration and Commentary in Medieval Textual Practices” (Rabea Kohnen)

Panel 5: “Authors Against the Story Economy” (Maria Mäkelä)

Panel 6: "The Limits of Self-Narratives" (Larissa Muravieva)

Panel 7: “Narrative Entitlement: A Concept for Narratology and the Study of Fiction?” (Sylvie Patron)

Panel 8: „Limits of Narrative in Medieval Texts” (Coralie Rippl-Uhlenhut)

Panel 9: “Causal and Emotional Understanding of Narratives” (Erzsébet Szabó)

Panel 10: “Cross-Genre and Cross-Media Transferability of Narrative Categories: Possibilities and Limits” (Tomasz Waszak)

Participatory Round Table: “The Future of Narrative Research in Europe” (Carolin Gebauer)

Please visit the ENN8 homepage for full panel descriptions.

Proposals’ submission deadline: March 10, 2025

Acceptances will be sent out on: March 25, 2025

Please note that ENN8 is not a hybrid conference. The two keynotes, however, will be streamed.

Selected papers will be published after the conference.

Preconference Doctoral Seminar:

Date: Monday morning, 29 September 2025

In conjunction with the 8th International Conference of the European Narratology Network, a preconference doctoral seminar on narratology will be held. The seminar will consist of an introductory lecture and of working sessions to which the participants will be distributed according to their particular topics. The seminar will be led by Roy Sommer, Janine Hauthal and Julian Hanebeck. Each student will present their topic (10–15 min), after which the supervisors comment on the topics, and a discussion, will follow. Applicants for the seminar must be doctoral students and doing research on any topic connected with narratology. At the end of the course, the participants will receive a diploma and 1 ECTS. Prospective participants are asked to send a 500-word description of their PhD thesis project together with the name of their institution via the registration form to enn2025@uni-wuppertal.de

The deadline for submissions is March 10, 2025

Acceptances will be sent out on March 25, 2025