Hanna Meretoja

University of Turku, Department of Comparative Literature, Faculty Member

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I am Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory at the University of Turku (Finland). My research is mainly in the fields of narrative theory, critical theory, narrative hermeneutics, ethical criticism and cultural memory studies. Much of my work explores the interrelations of literature, philosophy and history as well as the philosophical and historical underpinnings of different conceptions of narrative.

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Noel B. Salazar

KU Leuven

Maurice Yolles

Liverpool John Moores University

Michael Mascolo

Merrimack College

Cynthia R . Nielsen

University of Dallas

Benjamin Noys

University of Chichester

Scott R. Stroud

The University of Texas at Austin

David Seamon

Kansas State University

Marek Tamm

Tallinn University

Ani Kokobobo

University of Kansas

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

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Interpreting Violence, Violent Interpretations

Routledge eBooks, Feb 13, 2023

This chapter introduces the key terms of the edited volume: violence, interpretation, narrative, ... more This chapter introduces the key terms of the edited volume: violence, interpretation, narrative, hermeneutics, and ethics. It articulates how interpreting violence refers both to the process of meaning-making involved in understanding representations of violence and to the potential violence involved in interpretive acts themselves. Drawing on the distinction between understanding and explanation, it fleshes out the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics, which emphasizes the unfinalizable nature of understanding and suggests that understanding guided by openness to the singularity of the other can be nonviolent.. The contributors of the volume discuss different forms and levels of violence and explore the possibility of nonviolent interpretation in relation to a range of different ways of narrating violence. The introduction lays out the three sections of the volume. The first, “Representing Violence,” deals with the various representations of violence in literature and discourse, with a particular focus on the ambiguousness involved in the act of representing and on how representation itself can be an act of violence. The second section, “Understanding the Violence of Perpetrators,” focuses on making sense of the acts of those who commit violence. The final section, “Articulating Inherent Violence,” explores different levels of violence with particular attention to the violence that inheres in systems of signification and social structures. Overall, the Introduction explains how the volume provides conceptual resources for thinking about violence in its many forms in times of global crises. Violence ranges from discursive and structural to concrete, embodied violence. In this volume, we explore the ethical potential of literature and other arts in processes of making mechanisms of violence visible while also acknowledging that often good intentions can mask complicity in social structures that perpetuate practices of oppression.

Interpreting Violence

Routledge eBooks, Feb 13, 2023

Representations of violence surround us in everyday life – in news reports, films and novels – in... more Representations of violence surround us in everyday life – in news reports, films and novels – inviting interpretation and raising questions about the ethics of viewing or reading about harm done to others. How can we understand the processes of meaning-making involved in interpreting violent events and experiences? And can these acts of interpretation themselves be violent by reproducing the violence that they represent? This book examines the ethics of engaging with violent stories from a broad hermeneutic perspective. It offers multidisciplinary perspectives on the sense-making involved in interpreting violence in its various forms, from blatant physical violence to less visible forms that may inhere in words or in the social and political order of our societies. By focusing on different ways of narrating violence and on the cultural and paradigmatic forms that govern such narrations, Interpreting Violence explores the ethical potential of literature, art and philosophy to expose mechanisms of violence while also recognizing their implication in structures that contribute to or benefit from practices of violence.

Hermeneutic Awareness in Uncertain Times

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jun 14, 2023

Life and narrative

The Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory, May 26, 2022

Critical Approaches to the Storytelling Boom

Poetics Today

The proponents of the contemporary storytelling boom, such as professional business storytellers ... more The proponents of the contemporary storytelling boom, such as professional business storytellers and self-help coaches, urge individuals, groups, institutions, and corporations alike to find and tell their story. Social media as the predominant narrative environment for contemporary storytellers promotes the instrumentalization and commodification of stories of personal experience. Literary fiction as the primary locus for narrative experimentation finds itself conditioned and challenged by the story logic of social media, but it also possesses unique affordances for a critical engagement with the current celebration of narrative. How should a narrative theorist position oneself vis-à-vis these developments that are currently changing the public notions of what narratives are and what they can do? By drawing from narrative hermeneutics and cognitive and rhetorical narratology, this article outlines a “story-critical” approach to the current storytelling boom and provides examples of...

Hanna Meretoja

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