Narrative, Imagination, and Criticism

Abstract This article offers a new account of the relation between narrative, imagination, and criticism. I begin by investigating the ramifications of Alasdair MacIntrye's construal of the connection between imagination and social criticism, contending that his account fails to give adequate attention to the necessity of re‐narration. I argue that highlighting re‐narration affects the contours of story‐telling and its relationship to imagination and to politics, and to economics as well. I aim to supplement MacIntrye's account by articulating a different form of imagination, one that synthesizes Rowan Williams’ “tragic imagination” and Cora Diamond's Wittgensteinian “therapeutic imagination.” I conclude by showing the superiority of this new account by comparing this form of imagining to MacIntyre's philosophical narrative‐self and to John Milbank's account of theological re‐narration.