Book Reviews / Essays

Homo narrans and the Variables in His Stories

Essay by Danielle PASCAL-CASAS (2023), Ph.D., Member of the International Society for Research on Fiction and Fictionality.

In connection with the conference “Fiction and the Social Sciences” on May 16 and 17, 2024, Danielle PASCAL-CASAS invites you to read the essay titled “Homo narrans and the Variables of His Narratives.”

HOMO NARRANS March 2023 VASH – PDF 1 MB Download

It may be considered too ambitious, too encyclopedic, or—paradoxically—deserving of further elaboration.

One might criticize the book for its numerous footnotes and references, which run counter to current editorial preferences; the indication of the institutional status of those cited, which some might view as biased evidence of the relevance of the quoted statements; and the overly broad range of disciplines examined, which could lead to an epistemological stance that might be contested.

However, for Danielle PASCAL-CASAS, the notes are intended to provide the reader with additional context—but only if the reader wishes to explore the proposed line of thought in greater depth and the related documents, which draw from a wide variety of sources. The text remains fully understandable even without consulting them; the institutional status of the speakers is mentioned, as it is helpful to know the context from which their remarks originate; her methodology involves examining a very broad range of texts from different disciplines and multiple sources. Her theoretical approach aims to consider every text as an act of writing and a way of weaving facts into a narrative. She draws on the concept of Ricoeurian narrative and adds a narratological approach that is, moreover, linked to neuroscience. It is this last point that she highlights in her presentation, “The Decentering of Narratives,” delivered at the international conference “Fiction and the Social Sciences” organized by the SantESiH laboratory at the University of Montpellier on May 16 and 17, 2024.

The selection of texts will take us from grand collective narratives and imposed universalism to multi-sited texts—a current trend across all fields of knowledge—from the “we” of prescribed narratives to the search for a “we” to be constructed based on variable “I”s. The hybrid nature of contemporary narratives and the blurring of boundaries between fiction, autofiction, and nonfiction open up significant new horizons for reflection on current fields of knowledge, which Danielle PASCAL-CASAS explores.

Given that we are, biologically speaking, beings of language—through which we construct narratives that shape our world for better or for worse—the “we” remains the ultimate goal for advocates of democracy, built upon “I”s that are often undermined by manipulative algorithms and puppeteers of formidable effectiveness. May the power of Scheherazade’s stories remind us of the need to move toward more inclusive narratives. Words build or destroy the world. They hold all the power.

Please send your comments on the essay to: dpascalcasas@gmail.com

Visible and Invisible: The Paradox of the Fat Body.

Rouvarel, M. (2023).Visible and Invisible: The Paradox of the Fat Body. Review of the book: *Fatphobia: The Sociology of Invisible Discrimination*, by Solenne Carof (2021), published by Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, (272 pages). French Ethnology, 2023-1, pp. 137–139.

When Travel Becomes a Pathology… The Travel-Obsessed

Review of When Travel Becomes Pathological… The Mad Travelers

Ian Hacking,*Les fous voyageurs*, Paris: Seuil, “Les empêcheurs de penser en rond” series, 2002, 391 pp. Nathalie Le Roux – TEOROS Journal

Tourism, Health, Well-being, and Protected Areas

Minutes of Tourism, Health, Well-being, and Protected Areas

Iride Azara, Elini Michopoulou, Federico Niccolini, B. Derrick Taff, and Alan Clarke (eds.),*Tourism, Health, Wellbeing, and Protected Areas*, Croydon: CABI, 2018, 225 pp.

Eric Perera – TEOROS magazine