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GCSC Keynote Lecture: Pseudo-Stories & Neonarratives. Intersections of Narratives & Statistics with Prof. Daniel Newman (University of Toronto)

Wann

21.04.2026 von 16:00 bis 18:00 (Europe/Berlin / UTC200)

Wo

Konferenzraum- 001, EG, Otto-Behaghel.Str. 12

Name des Kontakts

Termin zum Kalender hinzufügen

iCal

 

 

Abstract

The cognitive turn in narratology has radically changed the way we think of narrativity. Rather than being a feature of texts themselves, narrativity is now posited to emerge from the interaction between texts and the minds of their audiences. This view takes on profound real-world significance when texts seem to exhibit strong narrativity even though they represent non-narrative, statistical phenomena. A simple example would be the probabilistic statement, “Not applying sunscreen causes skin cancer,” in contrast with the narrative statement, “He went out without sunscreen and got a sunburn.” Focusing primarily on diagrams representing actual stories and what I call “statistical  pseudo-stories,” and building on work by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, I seek to clarify why statistics are so easily misread as stories. The stakes are high for narratology, which has become increasingly interested in unnarratable probabilistic phenomena like climate change, but also for our social and political lives: our ability to resist disinformation, for example, depends to no small degree on recognize statistical pseudo-stories. But statistics also present opportunities for how to tell and theorize narrative in the age of  “unnarratable” phenomena like the climate and systemic social problems. My talk ends by considering how statistical thinking might spur what Robyn Warhol calls “neonarrative”—the emergence of new narrative forms serving new political and aesthetic purposes in new social contexts.

 

// Prof. Dr. Daniel Newman (University of Toronto)

 

CLICK HERE TO ATTEND ONLINE

 

See also Prof. Newman´s Master class HERE.