Donna F. Henson

Fragments and Fictions An Autoethnography of Past and Possibility

Pursuing the notion of verbal rumination as a theoretical method, this autoethnography plays in the space between fact and fiction, past and possibility. A disorganized narrative, by any definition of the term, this repetitive, ruminative, and relational storying plays in the shadows of subjectivities, in fragments of memory and possibility, storying a life lived, half-lived, unlived. Restorying a life that might be, could be, would be.

Aftershocks: Sense and nonsense making in a disorganized narrative

A disorganized narrative in both form and content, this article presents the storying and restorying of distant witness experience in the wake of recent natural disaster. A layered, fractured text; the writing blurs the lines between sense and nonsense making, self and other. Presenting the notion of verbal rumination as a theoretical method: This repetitive, ruminative narrative plays with the warm fuzzy and sometimes cold and prickly consequences of interpersonal storying. The resultant piece reflects a psychography of sorts, and seeks to make sense of the nonsensical, to organize the disorganized, to reconcile the irreconcilable. As with all natural disasters, it is a work in progress. My own little earthquake.A disorganized narrative in both form and content, this article presents the storying and restorying of distant witness experience in the wake of recent natural disaster. A layered, fractured text; the writing blurs the lines between sense and nonsense making, self and other. Presenting the notion of verbal rumination as a theoretical method: This repetitive, ruminative narrative plays with the warm fuzzy and sometimes cold and prickly consequences of interpersonal storying. The resultant piece reflects a psychography of sorts, and seeks to make sense of the nonsensical, to organize the disorganized, to reconcile the irreconcilable. As with all natural disasters, it is a work in progress. My own little earthquake.

Wrangling Space The Incoherence of a Long-Distance Life

A ruminative storying and restorying of a life lived in the consequences of space and time, this layered, “disorganized” narrative explores distance in its many and varied forms. Questioning the narrative principle of coherence, the writing plays in the space between presence and absence, distance and desire. Here and there. A psychography of sorts, the resultant piece attempts to make meaning of those interactional accidents of proximity that leave us loved, loving, leaving, or left. And also, and so very inevitably, bruised by the incidental and tedious trauma of it all. In wrangling this space, I seek to embrace the small moments that leave us changed in small ways; those fragments of experience that resist the imposition of coherence, that defy storying, that live on the edge of our narrative world.

The effects of loneliness on relational maintenance behaviors: An attributional perspective

This study links the experience of loneliness to the use of relational maintenance behaviors. More precisely, an attributional perspective on loneliness is adopted, wherein chronic loneliness leads to attributions for the cause of loneliness to stable, internal, and uncontrollable factors; situational loneliness is more likely to be attributed to unstable, external, and controllable factors. Over 400 participants completed measures of chronic and situational loneliness, and relational maintenance strategies. Residts indicated that both forms of loneliness are negatively associated with maintenance strategies. As anticipated, chronically lonely people reported the least use of relational maintenance behaviors across relationship types.

An Unauthorized Autoethnography of the Academic Life of Dr X

A layered, fractured text, this piece plays in the space afforded by an invitation to reflect on neoliberalism in the academy. Seeking by way of story to make sense, make meaning of the personal in the political, the author finds herself in a poetic “ruminarrative” accounting of the fragments, the fictions, and the funnies that define (and defy) this academic life.