Diachronic Narratology

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Monika Fludernik
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2018
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 404215440

The project Diachronic Narratology initiates a major innovative reorientation in narratological study by replacing the discipline's classical synchronism with a diachronic approach. From a diachronic perspective, the project will trace functional shifts and new narrative strategies in the history of English narrative, contrasting these changes with features that have remained of continuous relevance. It is the main aim of the project to identify and describe such paradigm shifts in the course of English narrative from the thirteenth century onwards and to then repose the question of narratology's universalist claims. Do the stages of the developments which have been outlined warrant the diagnosis that there are several discrete historically bound narratologies, or can the familiar categories of narratological analysis be contextually and historically inflected so that the current postclassical narratological paradigm is able to accommodate narratives across a historical range? If the latter aim is envisaged, this involves a significant challenge within the discipline, since the old static categories of narratology will have to be replaced by new flexible and historically sensible parameters. The risks of the project thus lie in the attempt to cover processes spanning a wide range of phenomena over time, to do so from a functional (rather than typological) perspective and to develop a new model of diachronic narratology that is able to do justice to the noted functional and processual aspects.

• DFG Programme: Reinhart Koselleck Projects