The Art of Storytelling

      Involving oneself with a narrative is a process that requires imagination. Without imagination, a viewer is unable to immerse themselves within the story, to associate with characters, or become emotionally influenced by the work at hand. Characters enable a viewer to become immersed within a story, typically through identification; being able to recognize traits within a character allows for the viewer to see themselves within the character. The means of engaging with the characters is typically divided between two distinct paths: empathic connection, and the structure of sympathy.        Scholars and psychologists have further specified the type of imagination required to intake a narrative as falling under “central” and “acentral imagining.” Under the former qualifier, an individual must actively envision themselves within an imaginary circumstance. Even if you’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, you can imagine the wind upon your face, th...

       Many among the Humanities often preoccupy themselves with the study of the ideology of mass art. Is art, particularly commercial, or mass art, merely a means of propagating a dominant culture’s ideology?  Or, barring that, is it a matter of subverting that culture’s ideology? Must the study of rhetoric fall into one of those two categories -- either wholesale proselytization, or condemnation?       The duality of such a standpoint is often a pitfall for many academics, as the reliance upon cultural ideology can be used as a crutch to avoid a true critical analysis. Such a shortcut, however, is capable of backfiring on the scholar -- for if their critique of a subject centers purely upon the ideological, then by default, their criticism is too far steeped within their own ideology as to be considered a truly neutral analysis.  Whether epistemic (a viewpoint based upon the logic of said ideology), or dominant (an ideology shared b...