Religious Narrative
An Introduction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v42i4.3Keywords:
religion, narrative, cognition, evolution, neurobiology, socializationAbstract
This introduction to the special issue on narrative discusses various ways of approaching religious narrative. It looks at various evolutionary hypotheses and distinguishes between three fundamental aspects of narrative: 1. the neurobiological, psychological, social and cultural mechanisms and processes, 2. the many media and methods used in human communication, and 3. the variety of expressive genres. The introduction ends with a definition of narrative.
References
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———. 2010. “Brain, Body and Culture: A Biocultural Theory of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22(4): 304–21.
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———. 2001. Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Ramachandran, V.S., and Sandra Blakeslee. 1999 [1998]. Phantoms in the Brain: Human Nature and the Architecture of the Mind. London: Fourth Estate.
Siegel, Daniel J. 1999. The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. London: The Guilford Press.
———. 2001. “Toward an Interpersonal Neurobiology of the Developing Mind: Attachment Relationships, ‘Mindsight,’ and Neural Integration.” Infant Mental Health Journal 22 (1–2): 67–94.
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Zushine, Lisa. 2006. Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. 1987 [1966]. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Harmondsworth: Penguin Press.
Blakeslee, Sandra, and Matthew Blakeslee. 2007. The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better. New York: Random House.
Boyd, Brian. 2009. On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
Bretherton, Inge, and Marjorie Beeghly. 1982. “Talking About Internal States: The Acquisition of an Explicit Theory of Mind.” Developmental Psychology 18(6): 906–21.
Damasio, Antonio. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness. London: Heinemann. Reprint, London: Vintage, 2000.
Donald, Merlin. 2001. A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness. New York: W.W.Norton.
Donald, Merlin, and Lars Andreassen. 2007. “Consciousness and Governance: From Embodiment to Enculturation—An Interview.” Cognitive Semiotics 0: 68–83.
Frith, Chris, 2007. Making Up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Geertz, Armin W. 1999. “Definition as Analytical Strategy in the Study of Religion.” Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques 25(3): 445–75.
———. 2010. “Brain, Body and Culture: A Biocultural Theory of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22(4): 304–21.
Gottschall, Jonathan, and David Sloan Wilson. eds. 2005. The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Herman, David, ed. 2003. Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences. Stanford: CSLI Publications, Center for the Study of Language and Information.
Hogan, Patrick Colm. 2003. The Mind and Its Stories: Narrative Universals and Human Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mead, George Herbert. 1962 [1934]. Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mithen, Steven. 1998 [1996]. The Prehistory of the Mind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Religion and Science. London: Phoenix,1998.
Nair, Rukmini Bhaya. 2002. Narrative Gravity: Conversation, Cognition, Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nelson, Katherine, ed. 1989. Narratives from the Crib. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reprint 2006.
Ochs, Elinor, and Lisa Capps. 1996. “Narrating the Self,” Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 19–43.
———. 2001. Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Onyut, Lamaro P., Frank Neuner, Elisabeth Schauer, Verena Ertle, Michael Odenwald, Maggie Schauer, and Thomas Elbert. 2005. “Narrative Exposure Therapy as a Treatment for Child War Survivors with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Two Case Reports and a Pilot Study in an African Refugee Settlement.” BMC Psychiatry 5(7): 1–9.
Ramachandran, V.S., and Sandra Blakeslee. 1999 [1998]. Phantoms in the Brain: Human Nature and the Architecture of the Mind. London: Fourth Estate.
Siegel, Daniel J. 1999. The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. London: The Guilford Press.
———. 2001. “Toward an Interpersonal Neurobiology of the Developing Mind: Attachment Relationships, ‘Mindsight,’ and Neural Integration.” Infant Mental Health Journal 22 (1–2): 67–94.
te Molder, Hedwig, and Jonathan Potter, eds. 2005. Conversation and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yovsi, Relindis Dzeaye. 2003. Ethnotheories about Breastfeeding and Mother-Infant Interaction: The Case of Sedentary Nso Farmers and Nomadic Fulani Pastorals with Their Infants 3-6 Months of Age in Mbven Sub Division of the Northwest Province of Cameroon. Münster: LIT Verlag.
Zushine, Lisa. 2006. Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Published
2013-11-13
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Geertz, A. (2013). Religious Narrative: An Introduction. Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 42(4), 3-9. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v42i4.3
