2003 - The Many Faces of Storytelling

Susan Kuner, Belmont alumna and author of numerous works which have explored the serious ethical and political implications of storytelling, will open the symposium with her reflections on storytelling as one of the most important activities we engage in as human beings.

Join Susan Kuner and Belmont staff member Linda Quigley as they discuss the gender implications of storytelling, especially as it pertains to how we tell the story of such diseases as breast cancer, the focus of their book Speaking the Language of Healing.

Come hear about mysterious voices and glimmering lights in the halls as Mark Brown, Curator of the Belmont Mansion, and Cynthia Cox, Director of Writing in the Belmont English Department, share some tales of Belmont and discuss why such stories appeal to us.

Jeff Coker, of Belmont’s History Department, will discuss oral history as a form of storytelling: how historians have used, and continue to use, oral history, as well as its strengths and limitations as a methodology. He will be joined by several of his students who will discuss their experiences as part of a summer CAS Scholar Community on the Belmont Oral History Project.

Kabahita Murutamanga, former Belmont faculty member and graduate of Vanderbilt’s doctoral program in French, will speak on the influence of social change on oral traditions in Africa, focusing on his work with Rwandan storytellers.

Join us as we engage with storytelling from around the world: Kabahita Murutamanga, a native of Congo, enacts Swahili stories from his homeland; Jaime Sanchez, of Volunteer State, shares in Spanish stories he collected from his Mexican grandmother; and Belmont students Anne McCarthy and Crystal Jones perform family stories and creative pieces in English.

Judy Doenges, creative writing professor at Colorado State and 2002 NEA grant recipient, will read from her forthcoming novel, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.

Join us as members of the planning committee discuss with the audience storytelling as a form of art, entertainment, and scholarship, ideas inspired by the different approaches represented in the variety of Symposium events.