Includes bibliographical references and index.

Pt. I. Literary readings ; 1.1. The role of imagination in narrative constructions / Theodore Sarbin ; 1.2. Fantastic self: a study of adolescents' fictional narratives, and aesthetic activity as identity work / Cynthia Lightfoot -- 1.3. Cultural modeling as a frame for narrative analysis / Carol D. Lee, Erica Rosenfeld, Ruby Mendenhall, Ama Rivers, and Brendesha Tynes ; 1.4. Data are everywhere: narrative criticism in the literature of experience / Mark Freeman -- -- pt. II. Social-relational readings ; 2.1. Construction of the cultural self in early narratives / Katherine Nelson ; 2.2. Creative uses of cultural genres / Colette Daiute ; 2.3. Positioning with Davie Hogan: stories, tellings, and identities / Michael Bamberg ; 2.4. Dilemmas of storytelling and identity / Steven Stanley and Michael Billig -- pt. III. Readings through the forces of history ; 3.1. Narrating and counternarrating illegality as an identity / Jocelyn Solis ; 3.2. Transcendent stories and counternarratives in Holocaust survivor life histories: searching for meaning in video-testimony archives / Sarah Carney ; 3.3. Women of "the greatest generation": feeling on the margin of social history / Abigail J. Stewart and Janet E. Malley -- 3.4. Culture, continuity, and the limits of narrativity: a comparison of the self-narratives of native and non-native youth ; Michael J. Chandler, Christopher E. Lalonde and Ulrich Teucher ; 3.5. Once upon a time: a narratologist's tale / Mary Gergen.