Narrative Now

In this ‘What’s New’ episode of Narrative Now we speak to Finnish narratologists Maria Mäkelä and Samuli Björninen, Tampere University, about their innovative research project named ‘Dangers of Narrative’. Taking a critical approach to the proliferation of storytelling in the public sphere, especially the use of personal narratives, Mäkelä and Björninen devised a new method utilising social media to invite the public to submit examples of such dubious uses of stories. In this episode we ask what they see as the problems in the value ascribed to personal stories and the challenges that arose during the research.

In this ‘what’s new’ episode of Narrative Now we spoke to Arlie Hochschild, Emerita Professor at University of California, Berkeley and a world-renowned sociologist of emotion. We discussed her widely celebrated 2016 book Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, based on her fieldwork with Tea Party Republicans in the US, and specifically the idea of ‘deep stories’ she develops in the book. To open up this concept for narrative researchers, we asked Hochschild how the idea of deep stories came about, what characterises it, as well as how we might work with deep stories. 

 In this ‘what's new’ episode of Narrative Now we spoke to Dr Yves Rees about their book All About Yves: Notes on a Transition (2021), just about to be published with Allen & Unwin when this conversation was recorded in August 2021. The memoir recounts the experience of gender transition, and in a move that challenges conventions about memoirs it is written at the age of 30. We chatted to Yves about what it was like to write the book, including some of the methodological and ethical considerations, for example, about privacy when writing about living people, as well as working with life narrative in a way that raises critical questions about what a life narrative should look like.

You can purchase All About Yves in online and in all good bookstores.

In this ‘what’s new’ episode we speak to Emeritus Professor of Sociology Ken Plummer, a legend of narrative research, about his influential research on stories, where the field is at now, and what might be its future. In this quite warm and personal conversation, we discussed the work Ken has done with narrative and stories across the span of his career, from the 1960s to the present; beginning with his first two books, Documents of Life and Telling Sexual Stories, up until his most recent works, Narrative Power and Critical Humanism.

In this ‘how to’ episode of Narrative Now we explore a question that may cross the minds of many narrative scholars, that is, how to include the author or researcher in the story that is being told. How we that answer question might also depend on what story is being told. We speak to two oral historians, Carla Pascoe Leahy and Sarah Rood, about their unique approach to this question.

In this ‘what’s new’ episode of Narrative Now we dive into collective narratives. We talk to three researchers – Imogen Carr, Julia Hurst and Dave McDonald – who have three very different takes on what collective narratives are and can be helpful for, looking at how collectives feature in their own work. We also explore some of the challenges and opportunities that are part and parcel of working with collective narratives. 

In this first episode of Narrative Now we explore how to story a book. Working with narrative data provides a wealth of opportunities but also presents the challenge of choosing what or which parts of the stories to focus on and how to curate this story. Storying a book based on narrative data also poses ethical questions around ownership and audience. Ultimately, in this episode, we ask which stories are ‘good stories’?

In this very brief introduction to the podcast we speak a little bit about what Narrative Now is intended to be and what you will encounter in this podcast series.