ABSTRACT
Narratology, or “the theory and systematic study of narrative” (Currie, 1998,
p. 1), is an expansive and active enterprise within which theories of narrative
are plural and wonderfully varying. This plurality accommodates perspectives
informed by diverse theoretical traditions, including realism, structuralism, and
social constructionism. The limitations of each of these perspectives, however,
has led poststructuralists (as well as some postmodernists and critical theorists)
to deploy the practices of deconstruction and to declare the death of dominant
narratology paradigms. For example, deconstructionists have noted that in realist
(including pragmatist and formalist) narratology, narrative is a sign system separ-
ated from knowledge of the signified; it is a rhetorical device and a contextualist
epistemology of historical events unfolding into the present (Boje, 2001, p. 15).
In structuralist narratology-which includes the work of American structuralists
and French structuralists-narrative is dualized as over story (Culler, 1981,
p. 169). That is, narrative is treated as elite to story in that it adds plot and
coherence to tidy up fragmented and nonlinear storylines. And, in social con-
structionist narratology (after Berger & Luckmann, 1966), narrative theory is
alleged to exclude political economy, ecology, and ideology in its application to
organizational studies.
