Boston College researcher to present keynote address at “Conference on Narrative Inquiry”
21 Feb 2008 | Renee Criddle
“Narrative Inquiry: Breathing Life into Talk, Text and the Visual” is the title of a conference to be held in UOW’s Faculty of Education on 22 and 23 February.
Conference Chair, Dr Pauline Lysaght, said a burgeoning interest in narrative theory and practice was evident in virtually every area of the human sciences and related professions.
“One of the reasons for this increased interest is that stories and their analysis can document experiences while acting as a catalyst for personal and social change in the lives of those who participate in the process. Stories record, challenge, shape and propel our lives. They can provide an important platform for giving voice to those who are marginalised,” Dr Lysaght said.
“As such, narrative inquiry meets the demands of many in the humanities and social sciences regarding empowerment and change in the personal, social and political arenas.”
Dr Lysaght said stories may be spoken, written or expressed in a visual form. “More recently, a turn to the visual has meant that researchers are now working with visual images and technologies towards the same ends”, she said.
The conference will provide opportunities to explore the ways in which stories, whether spoken, written or visual, can be understood and analysed from a narrative perspective.
The keynote speaker will be Professor Catherine Kohler Riessman of Boston College in the United States who is an acclaimed teacher and internationally renowned researcher. The focus of Professor Riessman’s work over a number of decades has been on issues of narrative identity, examining interrupted lives where events have disrupted expectations of continuity.
She has studied the narrative accounts that men and women develop to make sense of biographical disruptions such as chronic illness, divorce and infertility. She examines personal accounts as stories that can illuminate the social sources of “private troubles” by drawing connections between biography and society, revealing how identities are constructed narratively.
Professor Riessman has written widely in the field, including three books and numerous articles and book chapters. Narrative Analysis, her 1993 volume, has been widely used across graduate courses in qualitative research methodology across the world.
The revision of this book, Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences, published by SAGE, has just been released.
Photo/filming opportunity of Professor Catherine Kohler Riessman at the conference would be between 9.30am-10.30am in Room 104 of the McKinnon Building (Bldg 67) or at 10.30am in the Dean’s Meeting Room (third floor of McKinnon Bldg) during the morning tea break.
For further information contact Dr Gillian Vogl on 4221 4913 or Dr Pauline Lysaght on 4221 3424 or visit the website at http://edserver1.uow.edu.au/NI_conference/
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