Narrative, culture and cognition Things to consider: - We have individual minds, but our cognition is intensely social.

We rely on shared representations of the world as the basis for our conceptualizations and our mutual understanding. This brings implications for cultural narratives, and moreover to historical ones. In evolutionary terms, narratives are the realizations made possible by language and mark a stadium in evolution, between the mimetic mind and the theoretic mind. The mythic mind started from the creation of the first cultural narratives which reinforced the sense of togetherness, of common identification of the first human communities. These primitive stories enable the account of what is not available to perception and that as such cannot be negotiated or discussed as imitative behavior. In evolution, stories are a puzzle: they dont serve any apparent survival purpose; in fact, quite the opposite. The same could be said for development. Dauerstress vs. existential distraction. On the intentionality and methodology. The narrative text has an embedded intentionality. Interpreting the text consists in acknowledging and identifying this intentionality. This however is not equal to the intention of the real author. In fact, the assumption is problematic in the sense that it cannot be verified. The authorial intentionality in the text is not equal to the intentionality of the author. So, in those cases where the author is still available (a living author), interviewing him as to what he intended with his text is hopeless. He is the first to acknowledge that the authorial intentionality is part of the work itself and not an attribute that the author imposes onto it. So, if there is a lector in fabula, there is also an author in fabula, as an integrant part of it.

http://www.pierregander.com/phd/courses/narrative_cognition_and_culture/su mmary.html Authors to consider: Michael Bamberg, David Herman: Narratology as a cognitive science http://www.imageandnarrative.be/narratology/davidherman.htm A good interpretation of a text is the least bad. It is hard to define a good interpretation, but it is easier to recognize a bad one, one that is idiosyncratic or leaves the text to wander through a field of possibilities that are not immediately prompted by the written words. So, instead of defining a good interpretation, it is easier to acknowledge and describe what makes a bad one.