Coming to Narrative: A Personal History of Paradigm Change in the Human Sciences [Paperback]

Reflecting on a 50 year university career, Distinguished Professor Arthur Bochner, former President of the National Communication Association, discloses a lived history, both academic and personal, that has paralleled many of the paradigm shifts in the human sciences inspired by the turn toward narrative. He shows how the human sciencesespecially in his own areas of interpersonal, family, and communication theoryhave evolved from sciences directed toward prediction and control to interpretive ones focused on the search for meaning through qualitative, narrative, and ethnographic modes of inquiry. He outlines the theoretical contributions of such luminaries as Bateson, Laing, Goffman, Henry, Gergen, and Richardson in this transformation. Using diverse forms of narration, Bochner seamlessly layers theory and story, interweaving his professional and personal life with the social and historical contexts in which they developed.

Weaving autoethnography, theoretical exposition, and a close examination of social trends, distinguished scholar Arthur P. Bochner shows how the theoretical paradigms in the human sciences have developed and changed over the past four decades.

The book is a knock-out, a powerful, at times shattering painful narrative. Carefully crafted, its words are chiseled in my brain. It maps a journey many before have taken, but few have had the courage to tell. The best part of reading it is not wanting to stop. There is no in-between here, you're either in all the way, or there is no beginning. But if you are an honest academic, or an honest soul, there is no turning back.
Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

This is a brave book. C. Wright Mills would put it on his reading list if he were here, for Art Bochners ability to connect the personal with the social/cultural/political is astounding.

Laurel Richardson, Emerita, The Ohio State University

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