Bruner sets forth nothing less than a new agenda for the study of the mind. He examines the irrepressibly human acts of imagination that allow us to make experience meaningful; he calls this side of mental activity the “narrative mode,” and his book makes important advances in the effort to unravel its nature.

Drawing on the works of Martin Buber and Mikhail Bakhtin, the author explores the roles that dialogue, laughter, and spontaneity play in the education of the whole person.