"A generally acknowledged characteristic of modern life, namely the temporalization of experience, inextricable from our intensified experience of contingency and difference, has until now remained largely outside psychology's purview. Wherever questions about the development, structure, and function of the concept of time have been posed - for example by Piaget and other founders of genetic structuralism - they have been concerned predominantly with concepts of "physical", chronometrical time, and related concepts (e.g. "velocity"). All the contributions to the present volume attempt to close this gap. A larger number are especially interested in the narration of stories. Overview of the relevant literature, as well as empirical case studies, appear alongside theoretical and methodological reflections. Most contributions refer to specifically historical phenomena and meaning-constructions. Some touch on the subjects of biographical memory and biographical constructions of reality. Of all the various affinities between the contributions collected here, the most important is their consistent attention to issues of the constitution and representation of temporal experience."--BOOK JACKET.

Ch. 1 Narrative psychology and historical consciousness : relationships and perspectives / Donald E. Polkinghorne 3

Ch. 2 Past and present as narrative constructions / Jerome S. Bruner 23

Ch. 3 Telling stories, making history : toward a narrative psychology of the historical construction of meaning / Jurgen Straub 44

Ch. 4 Narrative, moral identity, and historical consciousness : a social constructionist account / Kenneth J. Gergen 99

Ch. 5 Narrative truth and identity formation : abduction and abuse stories as metaphors / Donald P. Spence 120

Ch. 6 The concept of time and the faculty of judgment in the ontogenesis of historical consciousness / Micha Brumlik 135

Ch. 7 Historical consciousness : the progress of knowledge in a postprogressive age / Peter Seixas 141

Ch. 8 Empirical psychological approaches to the historical consciousness of children / Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha, Monika Hausen 163

Ch. 9 The psychological study of historical consciousness / Samuel S. Wineburg 187

Ch. 10 Biography - a dream? : self-chronicling in the age psychoanalysis / Brigitte Boothe 211

Ch. 11 Authenticity and authority : on understanding the Shoah / Alexandre Metraux 228

Ch. 12 Albert Speer's memories of the future : on the historical consciouness of a leading figure in the third Reich / Harald Welzer 245