A case is made that encountering the narrative of another person is one of the ways the Self discovers itself. In finding traces of another within oneself, as one does in encountering the narrative of another, the Self is able to appreciate its own meaning. But the narrative represents more than merely capturing another’s story. In meeting the eyes and hearing the story of another, one not only takes responsibility for the Other; one begins to assume responsibility for oneself. The encounter inherent in the narrative, therefore, gives birth to the devotion of one person to another and makes possible the discovery of what one defines as being human.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Baker, R. (1993). Crossings of Levinas, Derrida, and Adorno: Horizons of non-violence. Diacritics, 23(4), 12-41.
2.
Basch, M. F. (1980). Doing psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.
3.
Basch, M. F. (1988). Understanding psychotherapy: The science behind the art. New York: Basic Books.
4.
Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss, sadness and depression. New York: Basic Books.
5.
Cohen, R. (Ed.). (1986). Face to face with Levinas. Albany: State University of New York Press.
6.
Coles, R. (1989). The call of stories: Teaching and the moral imagination. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
7.
Cottle, T. J. (2001a). At peril: Stories of injustice. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
8.
Cottle, T. J. (2001b). Mind fields: Adolescent consciousness in a culture of distraction. New York: Peter Lang.
9.
Dudek, S. Z. (1993). The morality of 20th-century transgressive art. Creativity Research Journal, 6(1-2), 145-152.
10.
Earls, F., & Carlson, M. (1993). Towards sustainable development of American families. Daedalus, 1(122), 93-122.
11.
English, F. W. (2000). A critical appraisal of Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’sPortraiture as a method of educational research. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 21-26.
12.
Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society. New York: Norton.
13.
Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity, youth, and crisis. New York: Norton.
14.
Fain, G. (1998). Special education: Justice, tolerance, and beneficence as duty. Journal of Education, 180(2), 41-56.
15.
Foucault, M. (1973). The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). New York: Random House. (Original work published 1963)
16.
Freud, S. (1961). Civilization and its discontents (J. Strachey, Trans.). New York: Norton. (Original work published 1930)
17.
Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. New York: Farrar and Rinehart.
18.
Hirsch, E. (1982). The concept of identity. New York: Oxford University Press.
19.
Karlsson, G. (1998). Beyond the pleasure principle: The affirmation of existence. Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 21(1), 37-52.
20.
Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving Self: Problem and process in human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
21.
Lawrence-Lightfoot, S., & Hoffman Davis, J. (1997). The art and science of portraiture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
22.
Levinas, E. (1969). Philosophy and the idea of the infinite. In A. Peperzak (Ed.), To the Other: An introduction to the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (pp. 88-119). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
23.
Mahler, M. (1975). The psychological birth of the human infant: Symbiosis and individuation. Franklin Lakes, NJ: Mahler Research Foundation Library.
24.
Nietzsche, F. (1965). Schopenhauer as educator (J. W. Hillesheim & M. R. Simpson, Trans.). South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions. (Original work published 1886)
25.
Sasso, G. M. (2001). The retreat from inquiry and knowledge in special education. The Journal of Special Education, 34(4), 178-193.
26.
Schinneller, J. A. (1968). Art: Search & self-discovery. Scranton, PA: International Textbook.
27.
Steiner, D. (2001). Unpublished class notes, Boston University.
28.
Usher, R., & Edwards, R. (1996). Postmodernism and education. London: Routledge.
29.
Weinstein, F. (2001). Freud, psychoanalysis, social theory: The unfulfilled promise. Albany: State University of New York Press.
