Browse Content
Life Worth Living is an initiative of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School.
Royal Holloway Univ of London HS2060
Telling Stories: Narrative and Community-Building in the Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern World
Alexis Artaud de La Ferrière and Kate Cooper
Societies use cultural tools to establish and broadcast shared values, but how do they go about it? Who decides what it means to be a good person? What strategies can groups and individuals use to engineer a shift in shared values?
Listen on
Telling Stories: Narrative and Community-Building in the Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern World
HS2060
Royal Holloway University of London
Taught by Alexis Artaud de La Ferrière and Kate Cooper
Course Introduction:
We all know societies use cultural tools to establish and broadcast shared values, but how do they go about it? In 'Telling Stories' we will explore how different societies across human history have used shared myths and narratives to create cohesion, and to serve as a space for staging debates about identities and values. Who decides what it means to be a good person? What strategies can groups and individuals use to engineer a shift in shared values?
Our texts are drawn from the Greek, Roman, Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic traditions, beginning with early epic and ending with the Enlightenment. The module will introduce scholarly debates about the historical context of each of its texts, and it will also give us an opportunity to talk about the legacythese influential texts have left to the modern world.
A Brief List of the Readings:
The Iliad, Book 19 (tr. Wilson)
The Gospel of Luke
Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, Chapter 4: ‘Truth and Poetry in the Book of Job’, pp. 105-38
The Life of Antony (chapters 1-15)
Extracts on Noah from The Qur’an (Interpreted), trans. A.J. Arberry: Surah 7, Surah 11, Surah 23, Surah 71
‘Awakening’ from Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
Jonathan Gottschall, ‘Hell is Story-Friendly’, Chapter 3 of The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (extract: Chapter 24)
Telling Stories: Narrative and Community-Building in the Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern World
HS2060
Royal Holloway University of London
Taught by Alexis Artaud de La Ferrière and Kate Cooper
Course Introduction:
We all know societies use cultural tools to establish and broadcast shared values, but how do they go about it? In 'Telling Stories' we will explore how different societies across human history have used shared myths and narratives to create cohesion, and to serve as a space for staging debates about identities and values. Who decides what it means to be a good person? What strategies can groups and individuals use to engineer a shift in shared values?
Our texts are drawn from the Greek, Roman, Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic traditions, beginning with early epic and ending with the Enlightenment. The module will introduce scholarly debates about the historical context of each of its texts, and it will also give us an opportunity to talk about the legacythese influential texts have left to the modern world.
A Brief List of the Readings:
The Iliad, Book 19 (tr. Wilson)
The Gospel of Luke
Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, Chapter 4: ‘Truth and Poetry in the Book of Job’, pp. 105-38
The Life of Antony (chapters 1-15)
Extracts on Noah from The Qur’an (Interpreted), trans. A.J. Arberry: Surah 7, Surah 11, Surah 23, Surah 71
‘Awakening’ from Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
Jonathan Gottschall, ‘Hell is Story-Friendly’, Chapter 3 of The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (extract: Chapter 24)
Keep browsing
Join the LWL Community
