2026/03/09 by John Richardson · 2 voices
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0047404526102127
openalex publication_date 2026/03/09 · openalex created_date 2026/03/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract Narratives possess a particular ability both to encapsulate and engender political/ideological aims. The extreme-right is aware of the pedagogic potential of fiction; however, their fiction is only rarely examined from a discourse-analytic perspective. This article analyses a short story written and distributed by a US neo-Nazi organisation. First, my analysis examines: narrative action processes , that is, the (transitive and intransitive) actions of characters, which drive narrative change; and modal tokens relevant to the evaluative function of the narrative. Second, I argue that narrative action processes and modal tokens represent the ‘warp and woof’ of narrative, since they (i) demonstrate how stories connect events, over time, and (ii) appraise the social/political meaning of these events. My analysis has significance for the discourse-analytic understanding of narrative more generally, as well as the specific ways that fantasies of agency and violence function in this story, to incite political action. (Narrative, narrative action processes, modal tokens, extreme-right, neo-Nazi fantasy)