Past, Present, and Future Peace: Narrative Through-Lines in Emerging PACS Research
March 28, 2023
To build peace, we look to the past, imagine the future, and harness the present moment to bridge what has been with what could be. Narrative approaches to peace and conflict studies (PACS) posit that story is the through-line by which past, present, and future peace and conflict become linked. In this session, The Narrative Transformation Lab highlights the ways that narrative serves as the through-line for building peace, seeking justice, and navigating conflict. The session spotlights the research of Carter School doctoral students who are using narrative approaches to understand complex peace and conflict contexts, including anti-establishment politics in the United States, the rise of smart cities, and the musical dimensions of protest and resistance. This session also features a discussion with TNT Lab’s Spring 2023 undergraduate research interns about how their work with TNT Lab is shaping their own lines of inquiry into narrative transformation.
Moderator: Solon Simmons (TNT Lab Director and Associate Professor, Carter School)
Presenters
- Audrey Williams – TNT Lab Manager and PhD Student, Carter School
- Oakley Hill – PhD Student, Carter School
- Elana Sokol – Peace Engineering Fellow and PhD Student, Carter School
- Hannah Schmutzer – Undergrad Research Intern at TNT Lab, Peacebuilding Fellow at the Carter School
- Ella Jackson – Undergrad Research Intern at TNT Lab, Peacebuilding Fellow at the Carter School
- Jaylin Barrett – Undergrad Research Intern at TNT Lab, Peacebuilding Fellow at the Carter School
This event was held as part of the Carter School’s Spring 2023 Peace Week.
The below webinars were not conducted as part of the activities of The Narrative Transformation Lab. Rather, they are presentations developed and given by members of the Carter School community who are working at the intersection of narrative and conflict transformation.
Method Mondays: Narrative Research Methods
May 2, 2022
In this session, Carter School professor Sara Cobb—a leading scholar and practitioner of narrative and conflict resolution—discusses various narrative research methods used in the field of peace and conflict studies (PACS). This session was part of the “Methods Mondays” series at the Carter School, which facilitates learning and discussion about different research methodologies in the PACS field.
Presenter: Sara Cobb (Drucie French Cumbie Professor, Carter School)
Root Narratives and Master Narratives
September 24, 2020
This research spotlight introduces the power of narrative in the study of peace and the practice of conflict resolution. After introducing the concept of narrative and explaining why it is so powerful and important for the current state of the field, we explore the difference between the basic structures of political narratives (root narratives) and the actual historical stories (master narratives) that parties use to make sense of conflict and to give reasons for what they do.
Presenter: Solon Simmons (Associate Professor, Carter School)
Narrative and Conflict
September 24, 2020
What makes a ‘good’ story? Is it in the way that it’s told? Or does it lie in the impact that the story has on the lives of its listeners, readers, and viewers? This workshop with Carter School Storyteller Audrey Williams examines how to tell compelling stories that also aim to do good in the world. The workshop gives students of conflict resolution who are interested in narrative a chance to learn more about the practice of narrative-based approaches to conflict resolution while focusing critically on how different storytelling techniques create, resolve, or transform conflict.
Presenter: Audrey Williams (MS ’20, PhD student, Carter School)
The Eclipse of Equality: Genealogy of a Missing Category
October 14, 2013
Solon Simmons presented the core arguments from his book, The Eclipse of Equality: Arguing America on Meet the Press, which tells the story of the atrophy in post-World War II America of one of the canonical categories of the moral imagination: equality. In this book, Solon explores the progressive articulation of the American idea as the core values freedom and tolerance find ready advocates and rhetorical supports in postwar America, while equality thought of in non-ascriptive and universal terms stagnates and falls out of our collective vocabulary. The story is not a happy one. Americans now confront one another over a dysfunctional divide, lacking the intellectual tools they need to confront their most dire social problems.
Presenter: Solon Simmons (Associate Professor, Carter School)