Mimetic Defiguration: The Retelling of Narratives in a Changing World
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2023-02-21
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en
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Abstract
Narratives are frameworks that allow us to make sense of human experience in a
way that is rooted in temporality. Following Paul Ricoeur, narratives are
constructed in a threefold process of mimesis: the prefiguration, configuration and
refiguration of action. The scale of narratives ranges from small stories to grand
cultural histories. In the latter case, the inevitable changing of the world renders the
semantic, cultural paradigm on which a people’s narrative is built vulnerable to
becoming meaningless, bringing about a defiguration of the narrative. However, the
semantics of the old narrative can be transformed to construct a new one. In this
article, we will investigate this phenomenon of defiguration and integrate it into
Ricoeur’s theory of mimesis.
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Faculteit der Filosofie, Theologie en Religiewetenschappen