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Although Italo Calvino (1923-1985) is one of the most widely read and translated Italian novelists of the century, a comprehensive analytical work in English of his writings has been unavailable until now. In this new study Angela Jeannet offers a rich and vibrant critical portrait that integrates Calvino the creative writer with Calvino the critical thinker, two roles that the novelist himself saw as intimately connected. "Under the Radiant Sun and the Crescent Moon" examines the cultural and literary matrix of Calvino's complex fictional universe, focusing on his passion for storytelling and the various stages in the evolution of his work. Calvino lived in a culture undergoing profound transformations. Jeannet traces the important creative influences and events in his life and their significance for his writing, from his cultivated bourgeois upbringing and reading of the Modernists to his confrontation with post-war industrialism, the consumer culture of the 1960s, and beyond. Throughout the study Jeannet brings to light Calvino's views on the function of storytelling in literature and society and his strong connections to the Italian poetic tradition. She also explores aspects of Calvino's work that deserve more attention, including the critically neglected Marcovaldo stories and the metaphorical role of the feminine in his fictional world.

LITERARY CRITICISM / European / Italian. --- Calvino, Italo --- Criticism and interpretation. --- storytelling

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"Based on an ethnographic study spanning four years, George H. Jensen's Storytelling in Alcoholics Anonymous: A Rhetorical Analysis calls upon Bakhtinian theory to analyze storytelling in AA." "Jensen covers Bakhtin's theory of the relationship between the author and the hero of a text, using Lillian Roth's autobiographies as counterexamples of AA talks. He discusses "rigorous honesty" within AA programs and provides a detailed analysis of the rhetorical act of stating "I am an alcoholic" in the context of an AA meeting. He devotes an entire chapter to explaining how AA meetings provide an example of what Bakhtin meant by carnival, a process through which humor, irony, and parody supply a mechanism for questioning commonly held beliefs. He shows how newcomers to AA move away from their egocentric personae as practicing alcoholics to adopt a new identity within AA. Turning back to Bakhtin, he describes the moments of discourse during which individuals confess past wrongs to God and to another person. Drawing further on Bakhtin, he examines the autobiographical moments of AA talks, stressing that these moments never become fully autobiographical. AA talks, Jensen argues, are fragmented yet achieve coherence through the interweaving of two important chronotopes. Finally, using Bakhtin's discussion of heroes in autobiography, Jensen discusses the kinds of heroes one typically finds in AA talks."--Jacket.

Alcoholics --- Communication in rehabilitation. --- Storytelling. --- Self-disclosure. --- Communication in rehabilitation --- Storytelling --- Self-disclosure --- Social Welfare & Social Work --- Social Sciences --- Substance Abuse --- Disclosure of self --- Revelation of self --- Self-disclosing behavior --- Self-revelation --- Extraversion --- Interpersonal communication --- Story-telling --- Telling of stories --- Oral interpretation --- Children's stories --- Folklore --- Oral interpretation of fiction --- Rehabilitation --- Alcoholism --- Rehabilitation. --- Performance --- Alcoholics Anonymous.

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In 1985, while she was an apprentice griot or jelimuso, Barbara G. Hoffman saw and recorded a remarkable event that took place in the small town of Kita, Mali. For four days, thousands of griots from all parts of the Mande world gathered together to talk, sing, and make music in celebration of the opening of the new Hall of Griots and the installation of the recently named Head Griot. This unprecedented assembly, unheard of in the history of the Mande, also marked the end of the two-year long 'War of the Griots'; a deadly conflict fought with the tools of the griot verbal masters - words, reputations, and sorcery. "Griots at War" captures griots in action as they made speeches, sang songs of praise, and danced in honor of their renewed unity. Hoffman's discerning transcription and examination of the speeches not only reveals the oratorical skills of griots, but their skill in using history, metaphor, religion, proverbs, and praise to mend a community that had been torn apart by war. But Hoffman discovers a startlingly keen edge to the griots' words. Who intervenes, and how, when war breaks out in the griot community? The speeches made at Kita expose both griots and nobles engaged in behaviours that were strikingly unexpected of people of their status. Hoffman shows that griot public oratory also functions to delineate the boundaries of griot castes and to persuade other castes to recognise and respect what gives each caste its unique identity. While the verbal art of griots has been well documented in the form of epic poetry, "Griots at War" brings their formidable linguistic abilities to the fore as they negotiate, reestablish, and assert their cultural power. This exceptional book offers surprising and important insights into the multiple meanings of Mande culture, caste, and identity.

Oratory --- Oral tradition --- Storytelling --- Griots --- Mandingo (African people) --- Story-telling --- Telling of stories --- Oral interpretation --- Children's stories --- Folklore --- Oral interpretation of fiction --- Tradition, Oral --- Oral communication --- Oral history --- Argumentation --- Oratory, Primitive --- Speaking --- Language and languages --- Rhetoric --- Speeches, addresses, etc. --- Debates and debating --- Elocution --- Eloquence --- Lectures and lecturing --- Persuasion (Rhetoric) --- Public speaking --- Malinke (African people) --- Mandé (African people) --- Manding (African people) --- Mandingue (African people) --- Mandinka (African people) --- Mandino (African people) --- Maninka (African people) --- Maninkaalu (African people) --- Soce (African people) --- Sosse (African people) --- Ethnology --- Historians --- Storytellers --- Kita. --- Social life and customs. --- Performance --- Kita (Kayes, Mali) --- Kita (Mali) --- Kita, Mali