Oral and Written Narratives and Cultural Identity

Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary volume centers on the interrelations of storytelling and various manifestations of cultural identity, from written to oral and from autobiographical to regional and national. Indigenous storytelling, as well as storytelling for and by children and the elderly, are the main focus of these essays. Together, these fifteen texts make a significant contribution toward a deeper understanding of various aspects of textual and oral narrative: they broaden the lines of inquiry into multidisciplinary and multicultural interests, particularly those centering on the construction, expression, and contextualization of various types of identity; and they illustrate the deployment of storytelling not only as testimony, contestation, and subversion - but also as peacebuilding. Many countries, languages and cultures are herein represented - from the United States and Canada to Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia, from English to Japanese to Greek to Italian to the languages of indigenous peoples of Latin America and the Philippines.