Collaborative, ‘hands on’ workshop open to research staff and students.
13th October, 10-1, University of St Andrews (Hebdomadar’s Room).
The myths that remain potent today are replete with violent conflict. For millennia they have normalised war and heroised warriors, while gesturing only superficially to war’s aftermath and its alternatives. However, in between the lines of these stories, other narratives can surface. Creative retellings — such as Pat Barker’s Silence of the Girls and Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships — have centred the experiences of characters (mainly women) whose war stories have long been suppressed. Such creative ‘counter narratives’ not only push back against the militarising messaging of the texts that they are responding to; they can also increase our ‘peace literacy’ by helping us explore more deeply what losing, finding, making and preserving peace involves in different contexts. This workshop will explore the potential — and limitations — of ‘reparative retelling’, drawing on related practices in speculative fiction (as theorised by e.g. Ursula Le Guin) and critical fabulation (pioneered by Saidiya Hartman).
This workshop invites participants (staff and students) from a wide range of disciplines (including Classics, English, History, Modern Languages, Film Studies, and International Relations) to come together to explore how creative methodologies can help us better understand the past, reframing our understanding of history as well as myth. Engaging with research on peace storytelling and narrative transformation, we will also consider the role that creative retellings of myth and history can play in deepening understanding of war and peace in the present and driving change for the future.
For more information, or to register, please email [email protected].