Storylistening Online Launch, Thursday 25th November 2021

Storylistening makes the case for the urgent need to take stories seriously in order to improve public reasoning

In Storylistening, Sarah Dillon and Claire Craig provide a theory and practice for gathering narrative evidence that will complement and strengthen, not distort, other forms of evidence, including that from science.

The book focuses on the cognitive and collective functions of stories, showing how they offer alternative points of view, create and cohere collective identities, function as narrative models, and play a crucial role in anticipation.

Storylistening explores these four functions in areas of public reasoning where decisions are strongly influenced by contentious knowledge and powerful imaginings: climate change, artificial intelligence, the economy, and nuclear weapons and power. Vivid performative readings of stories from the ballad of Tam Lin to the Terminator demonstrate the insights that storylistening can bring and the ways it might be practiced.

The book provokes a reimagining of what a public humanities might look like, and shows how the structures and practices of public reasoning can evolve to better incorporate narrative evidence. Storylistening aims to create the conditions in which the important task of listening to stories is possible, expected, and becomes endemic.

Taking the reader through complex ideas from different disciplines in ways that do not require any prior knowledge, this book is an essential read for policy makers, political scientists, students of literary studies, and anybody interested in the public humanities and the value, importance and operation of narratives.