The goal of this project is promote and discuss the craft of storytelling across genres and media—fiction, documentaries, memoir, academic inquiry, essay, oral history, film, photo-essay, song, poetry—you name it. We are especially interested in the craft of the performed story—the story told with the voice, the body, images, and/or sound. This kind of story is the oldest and most widespread vehicle of wisdom and knowledge in the world, and in many ways still the foundation of the humanities.
The project is founded on two simple observations. First, there is a growing, broad interest in telling stories with sound and images, both at Stanford and across the country. This interest stems largely from a media revolution that has enabled millions to produce and distribute their own audio and video recordings. Formats such as podcasting, web sites such as YouTube, networks such as Facebook, and software such as Easy Podcast and iMovie, have all helped to give ordinary people the means, if not the skills, to tell their stories. The growing interest in non-print storytelling is also reflected in the new popularity of programs that produce extraordinary stories by and about ordinary Americans—This American Life, Sound Portraits, Becoming American, and StoryCorps, to name a few. At Stanford, one can see this new interest in a variety of developments over the last decade. Organizations such as Lively Arts and the Institute for Diversity in the Arts have brought more and more storytellers to campus, from James Luna and Linda Tillery to Jerry Quickly and David Sedaris. The Art and Art History department has established a new undergraduate major in film and reconstituted the MFA program in documentary film. The Center for Teaching and Learning has developed an extensive Oral Communication Program. And in response to a Faculty Senate mandate, the Program in Writing and Rhetoric has developed a required writing course that leads students through the process of producing oral versions of written, research-based essays. Both within and beyond the university, then, there is a hunger to learn more about how to tell stories for the eye and ear.
Second, Stanford is home to some of the best storytellers around. Hundreds of students, fellows, and faculty craft compelling stories for non-print media—from audio essays and oral storytelling to documentary films and photo-essays. Undergraduate and graduate students produce audio and visual storytelling in a variety of courses, especially in the Programs of Writing and Rhetoric, Creative Writing, and Documentary Film. Stanford Faculty and Fellows (especially Stegner and Knight Fellows) frequently produce innovative stories for non-print media, expanding on traditional forms. Stanford is also home to some of the most sophisticated analysis of storytelling, especially oral and visual storytelling. Departments across the university, from English and Drama to Communication and Cultural and Social Anthropology, offer courses on oral traditions, visual storytelling, and narrative theory.
In our initial year we are producing a weekly, themed radio show (broadcast on KZSU) featuring stories of all kinds along with author interviews. This show is then augmented each week by video segments and podcast on Stanford iTunes. All of the stories and interviews are produced at Stanford and anyone in the Stanford community can submit stories. In addition to the broadcast and podcast, the project will host three evenings of storytelling and discussion during the 2007-2008 academic year, each with a featured guest. These evenings will revolve around a guest storyteller, one from the oral storytelling tradition, one from radio, and one from film. In subsequent years, the we hope expand the weekly program, add more image-based storytelling to the podcast, and host a symposium on non-print storytelling.
