ABSTRACT

Grounded in narrative theory, this book offers a case study of a liberal arts college’s use of narrative to help build identity, community, and collaboration within the college faculty across a range of disciplines, including history, psychology, sociology, theatre and dance, literature, anthropology, and communication. Exploring issues of methodology and their practical application, this narrative project speaks to the construction of identity for the liberal arts in today’s higher education climate. Narrative, Identity, and Academic Community focuses on the ways a cross-disciplinary emphasis on narrative can impact institutions in North America and contribute to the discussion of strategies to foster bottom-up, faculty-driven collaboration and innovation.

section I|68 pages

Interrogating and Framing Reality

chapter 1|14 pages

Old and New Technologies of Asynchronous Communication

Virtual Narratives and “Presence” 1

chapter 2|16 pages

Onitsha Market Literature

Narrating Identity and Survival in a Colonial African City

chapter 4|15 pages

Narrative Text and Photographs

A Case for Ethnographic Research Poetry

section |5 pages

Section I Summary: An Author Conversation

section II|54 pages

Narratives at the Intersection of the Public and Private

chapter 5|20 pages

Finding Story in Unexpected Places

Branding and the Role of Narrative in the Study of Communication

chapter 6|18 pages

The “Not Yet Pregnant”

The Impact of Narratives on Infertility Identity and Reproductive Policy

chapter 7|14 pages

Letter-Writing and the Eighteenth-Century Scientific Community

Constructing Narratives and Identity

section |6 pages

Section II Summary: An Author Conversation

section III|57 pages

Performing Bodies, Creating Stories

chapter 8|13 pages

Narratives of Pain

chapter 10|20 pages

Stories and Objects

Narrative and the Construction of Connective Links in an American Quilting Guild

chapter 11|10 pages

The Currency of Stories

Anthropologists, Nawaals, and the Strange World of Academe

section |4 pages

Section III Summary: An Author Conversation

chapter |2 pages

Conclusion: Narrative Diffusion