
Story Revolutions
Collective Narratives from the Enlightenment to the Digital Age
Helga Lenart-Cheng(Author)
University of Virginia Press
Published on 30. December 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-0-8139-4839-3 (ISBN)
Description
Social media has facilitated the sharing of once isolated testimonies to an extent and with an ease never before possible. The #MeToo movement provides a prime example of how such pooling of individual stories, in large enough numbers, can fuel political movements, fortify a sense of solidarity and community, and compel public reckoning by bringing important issues into mainstream consciousness.
In this timely and important study, Helga Lenart-Cheng has uncovered the antecedents of this phenomenon and provided a historical and critical analysis of this seemingly new but in fact deeply rooted tradition. Story Revolutions features a rich variety of case studies, from eighteenth-century memoir collections to contemporary Web 2.0 databases, including memoir contests, digital story-maps, crowd-sourced Covid diaries, and AI-assisted life writing. It spans the Enlightenment, the 1930s, and the twenty-first century-three historical periods marked by a convergence of mass movements and new methods of data collection that led to a boom in activism based in the aggregation and communication of stories. Ultimately, this book offers readers a critical perspective on the concept of community itself, with incisive reflections on what it means to use storytelling to build democracy in the twenty-first century.
In this timely and important study, Helga Lenart-Cheng has uncovered the antecedents of this phenomenon and provided a historical and critical analysis of this seemingly new but in fact deeply rooted tradition. Story Revolutions features a rich variety of case studies, from eighteenth-century memoir collections to contemporary Web 2.0 databases, including memoir contests, digital story-maps, crowd-sourced Covid diaries, and AI-assisted life writing. It spans the Enlightenment, the 1930s, and the twenty-first century-three historical periods marked by a convergence of mass movements and new methods of data collection that led to a boom in activism based in the aggregation and communication of stories. Ultimately, this book offers readers a critical perspective on the concept of community itself, with incisive reflections on what it means to use storytelling to build democracy in the twenty-first century.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Charlottesville
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
6 b&w illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
412 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8139-4839-3 (9780813948393)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Helga Lenart-Cheng is Associate Professor at St. Mary's College of California.