(Note from Dorry Noyes: This interdisciplinary workshop on narrative is
co-directed by folklorist Amy Shuman, and welcomes folklorists and
ethnologists working on ethnographic material.)

Project Narrative Summer Institute

June 9-20, 2014

The Ohio State University

Feminist and Queer Narrative Theories


The Project Narrative Summer Institute (PNSI) is a two-week workshop on the
Ohio State University Columbus campus that offers faculty and advanced
graduate students in any discipline the opportunity for an intensive study
of core
concepts and issues in narrative theory. The focus for summer 2014 will be
Queer and Feminist Narrative Theories: Interdisciplinary Methodologies.
Institute Directors: PNSI 2014 will be co-directed by OSU faculty members
Robyn Warhol, Arts & Humanities Distinguished Professor of English, and
Amy Shuman, Professor of English, Anthropology, and Women’s, Gender, and
Sexuality Studies and Director of Disability Studies. The Institute draws on
the
co-directors’ interdisciplinary training and research experience to
recombine
foundational queer and feminist texts in social sciences, literary theory,
and
narratology, with the goal of developing new transdisciplinary methodologies
for
teaching and research. Scholars in all humanities and social science fields
are
welcome.

Application Process and Deadline. Please submit application materials to
Professors Warhol ([log in to unmask]) and Shuman ([log in to unmask]). A
complete application consists of three items: (1) A current c.v. (with
up-to-date
contact information); (2) a personal statement of no more than 1,200 words
informally proposing your PNSI project and explaining how participation in
PNSI
will enhance your scholarship and/or teaching; and (3) one letter of
recommendation. Recommendations can be submitted directly by your
letterwriters
to the Institute Directors, or they can come with your other application
materials. Project Narrative will make admission decisions by April 15,
2014.
The deadline for applications is Monday, March 31, 2014.

Fees and Housing. Tuition for the 2014 Project Narrative Summer Institute is
$1,500. This does not include housing, but the Project Narrative staff will
assist
participants in finding affordable housing options according to individual
needs.
Project Narrative cannot provide financial aid, but the co-directors will
gladly write
in support of participants’ applications for funding from home institutions.

Structure of PNSI 2014: The co-directors will distribute a list of readings
to be
completed before the beginning of the institute. Each participant will bring
a
scholarly or pedagogical project to work on during the two weeks and to
share
with PNSI seminar members. The project might be, for example, the outline
for
an article or conference paper, a proposal for a book or dissertation, a
lesson
plan or a course syllabus. The Institute meets each morning as a seminar to
discuss assigned readings and to share work in progress, giving participants
time
in the afternoons to pursue their individual projects. The co-directors will
facilitate seminar discussions and make themselves available to meet once
with
each participant.

Topics and approaches to be addressed: Seminar readings will survey
theoretical writings from a variety of disciplines on the gendered and sexed
dimensions of narrative. Topics for discussion include queer theory, French
feminism, and the erotic; temporality, spatiality, and seriality;
ethnography, oral
narrative, and conversational storytelling; medicine, embodiment, and
dis/ability;
intersectionality and assemblage; the structure of address in literary and
popularmedia
texts; tellability and the unnarratable. Texts for close analysis will
include
Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home, women’s religious conversion
narratives and queer coming-out stories in written and You-Tube formats, and
Netflix TV’s Orange is the New Black, as well as selected short literary
examples.
To provide a common vocabulary for discussing elements of narrative,
participants will read David Herman et al., Narrative Theory: Core Concepts
and
Critical Debates, with particular attention to the sections written by
Professor
Warhol on feminist narratology.

For more information about PNSI email either of the co-directors at
[log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] Watch the Ohio State University
Project Narrative website for developing details about the reading
assignments

and daily schedule for PNSI 2014.




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