electiveHQ

Storytelling is core to the human experience. We express ourselves and communicate through different kinds of stories, from novels and news bulletins to fairy tales and conversations with friends, and it is in ‘telling a good story’ that we are able to connect with other people. The formal study of storytelling is rooted in literature and the oral tradition but it also offers an analytical framework to understand the standard techniques utilized in other media such as advertising or film to develop and communicate an effective narrative. This module will introduce students to the traditional methods applied by scholars of folklore and literature to decode literary narratives from Classical antiquity into the Medieval period and more recent oral tradition material. The second half of the module will focus on the storytelling techniques of journalism, TV, film, and psychotherapy and finally how storytelling remains core in the age of social media and the internet.