The 11th SSPPP aims to explore the concepts of narrative and narrativity from the perspective of the phenomenological tradition. This will be done by discussing a broad set of different but interconnected themes. The concept of narrative refers to the relationship that subjectivity has with its temporal dimension, both individual and collective. What is the relationship between stories and narratives? Do stories always have a narrative nature? What does it mean to be entangled in stories? Are we always already entangled in stories, as Wilhelm Schapp systematically argues? Or must we also recognize that there is a layer in the constitution of the subject (individual and collective) and its world that cannot be reduced to the narrative dimension? Phenomenological analysis sheds light both on the narrative dimension of historical knowledge and on the function of narrativity for the constitution and/or construction of the subject's personal identity and own (surrounding) world.
The triad memory, history, oblivion, central to Paul Ricœur’s work, finds its place here. Furthermore, narratives occupy a central place in the dimension of fiction, especially, but not only, in its specifically literary form. In this form, narratives have been the subject of the great work of Roman Ingarden, but also of the many attempts to use specifically Husserlian notions (life-world, intersubjectivity, imaginative variations) to understand the structure of literary worlds. In addition, literary fiction feeds phenomenological investigations with complex imaginary scenarios, which have the power to illuminate subtle phenomenological structures. But what is the relationship between narrative and imagination? Is there a specific form of narrative imagination, as Husserl seems to suggest?