Narrative, identity, and the city

Description

"Raul P. Lejano offers a boldly original synthesis of narratology, psychology, and human geography. This helps him articulate his two main insights: that our identity as individuals, though not completely determined by sociocultural factors, nevertheless profoundly reflects our embeddedness in particular places; and that the way we think of, or would like to think of, our own identity is most readily captured in the stories we tell about ourselves. Most revealing of all, he suggests, are our stories about coming to grips with an entire city, especially when our experience of it is actually one of dislocation or relocation - when we in some sense or other "lose" a city to which we have hitherto belonged, or when we "find" a new one. By way of illustration the book includes four specially commissioned autobiographical stories by writers of Filipino origin, which Legano's analytical chapters compare and contrast with each other within his interdisciplinary frame of reference. At once learnedly sophisticated and readably empathetic, his commentaries are underpinned by a basically phenomenological orientation, which leads him to view human individuals as essentially relational beings, naturally inclined to enter into dialogue with both their fellow-creatures and the larger environment"--

Subjects

Series Statement

• FILLM Studies in Languages and Literatures -- volume 8
• FILLM studies in languages and literatures -- v. 8.

Other Editions

• Narrative, identity, and the city: Filipino stories of dislocation and relocationJohn Benjamins Publishing Company2018-01-01
• Narrative, Identity, and the CityBenjamins Publishing Company, John2018-01-01