Norma Cameron: Cultivating Narrative Intelligence

In this TEDxVictoria video, Norma Cameron looks at the evolution of story. As we evolve into a global community, the skills of a storyteller—cultivating imagination, embracing listening and exercising perceptual agility—are needed more than ever before!

Daniel Kahneman: The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory

In this TED talk, Mr. Kahneman explains how the remembering self (storyteller) dominates the memory of the experiencing self. Our future is made up of anticipated memories. My favorite part is when he asks about what kind of vacation you’d choose to take if you knew you were not going to remember the vacation. Would you still go?

Kain Carter: Gather Round, I Got a Story to Tell…

This is awesome. Kain Carter tells a story. Simple, straight up storytelling.

Debt: Money, Narrative, Belief - Call for Papers

Call for Papers

Debt: Money/Narrative/Belief
Department of English
Graduate Student Conference
Dalhousie University, Halifax N.S.
August 17-19, 2012

In her 2008 Massey Lectures, Margaret Atwood calls debt “that peculiar nexus where money, narrative or story, and religious belief intersect, often with explosive force.” Today, we are facing an explosion of discourses foregrounding financial debt. Whether in the Euro Zone Debt Crisis, the Occupy Wall Street Movement, or rising student loan debt, narrative and debt cannot be decoupled, nor can they be detached from a given political or affective investment. In addition to the obvious economic concerns, we are also interested in widening the discussion of debt: How do literature and cultural products help us make sense of these issues? In what ways are individual authors and texts indebted to the social, cultural, or historical moment in which they are situated? How are current and historic discourses—be they social, literary, or philosophical—shaped by representations of debt and indebtedness?

Since few know more about debt than graduate students, the Dalhousie Association of Graduate Students in English (DAGSE) invites submissions for paper presentations for
its interdisciplinary graduate student conference: “Debt: Money/Narrative/Belief.” We welcome proposals from students at all levels and in all areas of graduate study. This three-day conference will be held August 17-19, 2012 at Dalhousie University, located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and will investigate the ways in which literature, history, art, and culture shape and are shaped by discourses and experiences of debt.

We invite proposals for papers (15-20 minutes) on themes and subjects including, but not limited to:

• Literary and cultural debts: mentors, movements, sources of influence
• Marxist literary theory; the sociology of literature; cultural materialism
• The Great Depression; the current Depression
• Gambles, speculation, debtors’ prison
• Wills, inheritance, legacies
• Crashes, scams and financial scandals
• Deals with the Devil
• Religious debts (alms giving, sacrifice, forgiveness, etc.)
• Colonial aftermaths; reparations
• Genre literature, genre studies
• Plagiarism, quotation, “borrowing”
• Worlds without capitalism: utopias and speculative fiction

Submission: 250-word abstract plus cover letter with name, current level of graduate study, affiliated university, and email address to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Include the words “conference abstract” in subject line, and include name on the cover letter only.

Deadline: March 15, 2012. Accepted presenters will receive notification by the end of April.

Contact the Organizers at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you have questions about the conference.

Public Speaking Tip: How to Use Storytelling

Scott Ginsberg talks about the “PIP” method, which is a three-part framework for improvising stories.

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