tag archive: public ritual

November 3, 2012

A Presidential Campaign, but No Presidential or National Narrative

By . Filed Under: Narrative forms, Political Analysis, Politics and Policy, Strategic Leadership.

A presidential campaign is an exercise in storytelling. Each candidate is always seeking to tell the most compelling story of the nation, one that both reflects who we think we are and projects into the future the kind of nation we’d like to be. The very occasion of campaign, with its promise of renewal, should be a strong backdrop for the symbols, themes, images and practices that tie past and future of a nation together.

This year, both Romney and Obama have struggled to find their foothold in a narrative that works. As the near tie in popularity makes clear, neither has a mandate, and neither has told a story with a powerful sense of forward momentum. Continue reading

Posted in: Narrative forms, Political Analysis, Politics and Policy, Strategic Leadership Tags: , , , , , , ,
January 21, 2012

The Form of National Myths

By . Filed Under: Narrative Research, Popular Culture.

Storytelling pole of the Haida nation

I was reminded of the tremendous elasticity of narrative forms when I recently visited the Denver Art Museum’s amazing American Indian art collection for the first time, by the Haida storytelling pole near the entrance of the collection. The Haida is a native tribe of the Northwest coast of the United States and Canada and, like other tribes of the coast, are known for the immense carved poles through which tribal myths are told.

The story told in this pole is about a man who was almost captured by otters when his canoe capsized. The figures at the very top of the pole are watchmen. Next lowest is the man who escaped the otters, holding an otter by the tail. The figure in the middle represents the cave where the otters live and at the very bottom is a cave spirit, who holds a stingray.

My own inclination was to try to “read” the pole in a linear direction, from top to bottom, to find in it the action part of the story, in which the man escapes the otters. But the real story may lie less in the pole itself than in the interaction between community members and the symbolic item, Continue reading

Posted in: Narrative Research, Popular Culture Tags: , , ,
September 5, 2011

Communal Narrative on Parade at Annual West Indian American Day Carnival

By . Filed Under: Intercultural Communication, News and Journalism, Popular Culture.

In our social lives, narrative is not only something we tell but also something we perform. Public rituals like parades give us the chance to chronicle our communities in physical space and display the symbols and activities that define us. The words of George Fitch in Colliers Magazine in 1913, testifying to the popular pleasures of parades, are still true today.

The parade is an essential part of the American temperament. We not only inaugurate by parade, but we rejoice, mourn, commemorate, protest, inspire and argue by parades. Whenever two or three Americans are gathered together with a uniform within reach, they parade… The test of true brotherhood in any city is the willingness to parade in a white apron, a rooster feather hat, or a pair of baggy pink silk trousers.

Among the most joyous of these tests today is surely the annual West Indian American Day parade in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, an astonishing celebration of the colors, music and flavors of Carnival in the Caribbean, held this year on September 5, and an exuberant testament to multiculturalism. Continue reading

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