2019—Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan is Emeritus Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she held the Renee Lang Chair for Humanistic Studies. Born in 1942, she received her Ph.D. from the University of London and has held visiting professorships at Harvard University and the University of Helsinki. She is the author of The Concept of Ambiguity, the Example of James (1977), A Glance Beyond Doubt: Narration, Representation, Subjectivity (1996), and most notably of Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (1983, revised 2002), which remains one of the most widely used and valued introductions to narratology. She has also published widely in journals that include Critical Inquiry, Narrative, New Literary History, Poetics Today, Partial Answers, and Literature and Medicine and she has edited two books, Discourse in Psychoanalysis and Literature (1987, newly reprinted as a “Routledge Revival”) and Rereading Texts/Rethinking Critical Presuppositions (co-edited in 1997 with Leona Toker and Shuli Barzilai). Rimmon-Kenan is credited not only with articulating core concepts in narratology but with refining them. In showing how narratology can apply to a wide range of texts and how texts may themselves be understood as narrative theory, Rimmon-Kenan has demonstrated the value of a reciprocal epistemology. She has also made pioneering interventions in narrative understandings of space and place, subjectivity, narrative level, repetition, the interface between narrative and psychoanalysis, and the narratological insights to be gained from studying the problems and specificities of illness narratives. Rimmon-Kenan’s current work explores narrative as a nexus between disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. She is also engaged in a long-term project with Susan S. Lanser to explore narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a narratological lens. She was elected in 2013 to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, comprised of one hundred of Israel’s most distinguished scholars.
Dan Punday President, ISSN
Ladies and gentlemen,
I have the honour and pleasure to inform you that the 2019 Wayne C. Booth Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Society for the Study of Narrative goes to the Israeli narratologist Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan.
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan is Emeritus Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she held the Renee Lang Chair for Humanistic Studies. Born in 1942, she received her Ph.D. from the University of London and has held visiting professorships at Harvard University and the University of Helsinki.
She is the author of The Concept of Ambiguity, the Example of James (first published in 1977), A Glance Beyond Doubt: Narration, Representation, Subjectivity (first published in 1996), and most notably of Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (first published in 1983, and revised in 2002). We are all familiar with Narrative Fiction, which remains one of the most widely used and valued introductions to narratology.
Shlomith has also published widely in journals that include Critical Inquiry, Narrative, New Literary History, Poetics Today, Partial Answers, and Literature and Medicine, and she has edited two books, Discourse in Psychoanalysis and Literature (1987, newly reprinted as a “Routledge Revival”) and Rereading Texts/Rethinking Critical Presuppositions (co-edited in 1997 with Leona Toker and Shuli Barzilai).
Shlomith is credited not only with articulating core concepts in narratology but also with substantially refining them. In showing how narratology can apply to a wide range of texts and how these texts may themselves be understood as narrative theory, Shlomith has demonstrated the value of a reciprocal epistemology.
She has also made pioneering interventions in narrative understandings of space and place, subjectivity, narrative levels, repetition, the interface between narrative and psychoanalysis, and the narratological insights to be gained from studying the problems and specificities of illness narratives.
Her current work explores narrative as a nexus between disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. In 2013, she was elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, comprised of one hundred of Israel’s most distinguished scholars.
Furthermore, Shlomith's work fuses narratological expertise and political commitments. In her thinking, these two areas go hand in hand. For instance, she is engaged in a very important long-term project with Sue Lanser to explore narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a narratological lens.
I am very happy that Shlomith gets this award. I have always enjoyed her work tremendously and I will continue to do so in the future. In addition, she is an extremely nice person. It is truly enjoyable to spend time with her. Shlomith embodies a whole list of qualities that are dear to me. She combines intellectual brilliance with honesty, modesty, curiosity, a fundamental belief in mutuality, and a profound interest in others and Otherness.
At this point, I will stop talking to give the 2019 Waynce C. Booth Lifetime Achievement Award to Shlomith. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in congratulating the incredible Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan.