I'm back from my first trip to Ohio for my first time attending the International Society for the Study of Narrative Conference. I'm exhausted, and haven't really been able to sit down and digest all that I've heard and learned this past weekend, but I can say that the event was a resounding success, at least to me.
The Narrative Society conference in Cleveland was very nice. I got to see a ton of great panels and listen to some really interesting plenaries. Nearly every minute of the day was planned out and scheduled, which was the only way to get in all the material that people had to present on, but which also made for some very long days. I will say kudos to the event organizers, though, because they really took the time to plan out the major details and the seemingly minor ones, like how to get from one part of town to the other, which restaurants to recommend and what to do for pleasure, and how to ensure that new attendees get to meet other attendees at the start of the program. To be honest, it was one of the largest, yet most successfully executed, conferences I have been to in a while.
One thing that the conference helped me to think about was how to use narratology in a much more practical sense than I had been previously thinking about. Many of the panels were focused on a particular literary text, and used narrative devices to unpack this text or set of texts in some surprisingly meaningful ways. I say surprisingly, because it seems that mentioning my interest in narrative theory brings to mind images of boring, pedantic sermons with few real revelations that go beyond simple mapping of texts. In actuality, though, and one thing that this conference really helped me to understand and be able to talk about with others, is the usefulness of these methods in getting to greater meanings in these texts, how authors construct them, and how we respond to them based off of our inherent understandings of narrative principles. I'm really thankful that I am starting to understand some of what I perceive to be the more interesting uses of narrative theory and useful ways that they might work for my larger dissertation work. In truth, I was often overwhelmed by what other people were saying and my own relative lack of knowledge. I also got some really great foundational ideas cleared up, though, and was very happy with the way that my session turned out. My technology all worked with just a few minor hiccups, and the Q & A session was stimulating to my thinking about the topic.
Shout out to Matt’s parents, who gave me their frequent flyer miles to get me to Ohio (and back – even better!).
