The challenge of life and literary narrative is the central and perennial mystery of how people encounter, manage, and inhabit a self and a world of their own - and others' - creations. With a nod to the eminent scholar and psychologist Jerome Bruner, Life and Narrative: The Risks and Responsibilities of Storying Experience explores the circulation of meaning between experience and the recounting of that experience to others.A variety of arguments center around the kind of relationship life and narrative share with one another. In this volume, rather than choosing to argue that this relationship is either continuous or discontinuous, editors Brian Schiff, A. Elizabeth McKim, and Sylvie Patron and their contributing authors reject the simple binary and masterfully incorporate a more nuanced approach that has more descriptive appeal and theoretical traction for readers.Exploring such diverse and fascinating topics as 'Narrative and the Law,' 'Narrative Fiction, the Short Story, and Life,' 'The Body as Biography,' and 'The Politics of Memory,' Life and Narrative features important research and perspectives from both up-and-coming researchers and prominent scholars in the field - many of which who are widely acknowledged for moving the needle forward on the study of narrative in their respective disciplines and beyond.

Foreword: Life Meets NarrativeMatti HyvärinenIntroduction: Life and Narrative; A Brief PrimerBrian Schiff, Sylvie Patron, and A. Elizabeth McKimPart I. Routes1. Narrative and Law: How They Need Each OtherJerome Bruner2. Narrative at the Limits (Or: What is "Life" Really Like?)Mark Freeman3. Narrative/Life of the Moment: From Telling a Story to Taking a Narrative StanceAlexandra Georgakopoulou4. Narrative Fiction, the Short Story, and Life: The Case of Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain"James PhelanII. The Ethics of Narrating Life5. On the Use and Abuse of Narrative for Life: Towards an Ethics of StorytellingHanna Meretoja6. Identity Hoaxes and the Complicity of Social AuthorshipAshley Barnwell7. Turning Life into Stories-Turning Stories into LivesLars-Åke SkalinIII. Self-Making8. The Body as BiographyEmily Heavy9. Narrative Refashioning and Illness: Doctor-Patient Encounters in Siri Hustvedt's The Shaking WomanJarmila Mildorf10. Phototextuality in Sophie Calle's Des Histoires VraiesCatherine Karen RoyIV. Master Narratives and Personal Narratives11. The Intersection of Personal and Master Narratives: Is Redemption for Everyone?Andrea V. Breen and Kate C. McLean12. Shared Narratives and the Politics of Memory: Toward ReconciliationMichael Keren13. Engaging Crystallization to Understand Life and Narrative: The Case of Active AgingCassandra Phoenix and Noreen OrrV. Narrating Life in Oral History and Literature14. The Difference of FictionBrian Richardson15. Lumping, Splitting, and Narratives as Rhetorical Actions: Notes on Christina J. Pan's "Reminiscences" and Deborah Eisenberg's "Twilight of the Superheroes"James Phelan16. Who tells whose story? Beyond Everyday and Literary Stories, Fact, and FictionAlexandra Georgakopoulou17. Narrative and Truth: Some Preliminary NotesMark Freeman18. Witnessing the Impact: 9/11 in Everyday and Literary StoriesJens BrockmeierAfterword: Narrative and Life: From So What? to What Next?William L. Randall