Storytelling
Spring 2002 course:  X02.9046

New York University, School of Professional and Continuing Studies.

Wednesdays, 6:20-8:00pm, Feb. 6 - April 17.

Course description:

What makes a great storyteller?  Storytelling is an interactive process in which a person uses voice, body, and external objects to relate a series of events to at least one other person.  In this course, we focus on the methods and contexts of various types of storytelling, starting with storytelling in everyday conversation, and including storytelling by parents, community members, lawyers, businesspeople, teachers, librarians, preachers, shamans, healthworkers, and professional storytellers.  We observe videotapes of storytelling events and examine other ways of making texts of such events -- and we look at what can happen when storytelling is attempted via audio- and videoconferencing.  Readings are drawn from disciplines such as anthropology, folklore, sociology, psychology, and performance studies.  This course is both analytical and practical: students receive coaching in the telling -- in various styles -- of true-life, original, traditional, and other types of stories; and in the composing and adapting of stories for telling.

Students need have no formal background in the study or practice of storytelling, nor need they be in any academic program.  NYU charges $395 for this course: to inquire about reduced admission, please contact the instructor. 

Here is an outline of the NYU SCPS Storytelling course.  Here is a syllabus Eric is developing for a more academic, graduate school version of this course.

About the instructor:

Eric Miller hopes to help to establish Storytelling Studies as an interdisciplinary field in academia.  He is working toward a Ph.D. in Folklore at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia): his B.A. and M.A. were earned at New York University's Gallatin School.  As an adjunct professor at Fordham University (Lincoln Center campus) and St. John's University (Staten Island campus), he has taught: Expository Writing, Writing About Literature, The Modern Short Story, American Drama, The Folk Tale,and Introduction to Speech Communication.

Eric has studied with professional storytellers in the USA and south India.  He has extensive experience in videotaping storytelling events, and part of his work involves comparing face-to-face and videoconferenced storytelling.

Please see Eric's website, http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller , for links to his various writings about storytelling, including:
The interdisciplinary field, Storytelling Studies.
Twelve principles of face-to-face storytelling.
Visuals accompanying face-to-face storytelling.
Turn-taking and relevance in conversation.
Roleplaying in an African storytelling event.
Continuity and change in Chinese storytelling.
Epic and lament.
The performer's identification with the hero in an Egyptian epic-chanting event.
A report on the 1996 Storytelling for the New Millennium conference.
Storytelling Studies bibliography.

To contact Eric Miller --
212-614-1294, emiller@sas.upenn.edu , http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller .

To contact NYU's School of Professional and Continuing Studies --
For information, call 212-998-7142.  To register, call 212-998-7171, or see http://www.scps.nyu.edu .

Note:
In the future, this course may be offered via live webcast and/or videoconference.  Please let Eric know if you might possibly be interested in taking this course in such a manner, and what, if any, software you use for video-mediated communication.  Thank you!