[Discussion] UPDATE: Southern Crossroads Storytelling Conference (7/1/05; 10/28/05-10/29/05)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

From: Owen Elmore <oelmore@lsua.edu>

--The deadline, location, and schedule have all changed for this
conference--


2005 Southern Crossroads Storytelling Conference

Louisiana State University at Alexandria-October 28 & 29

TOPIC: Social Change vs. Communal Preservation: The Storyteller as
Social Bricoleur

Is there a socially regenerative function to storytelling? Do storytellers
change society even within a pragmatic social milieu often consciously
indifferent to their existence? Do storytellers use culturally-subversive
elements in their stories in order to have regenerative effect on stagnated
social conventions? Can they simultaneously maintain any degree of psychic
protection for themselves?

This conference hopes to explore how storytellers are like pilot fish, 
clinging
close enough to clean the body of culture of outmoded social paradigms while
staying marginal enough to the sonar of conscious social perception and
convention to be left alone in their work.


The conference will occur on the campus of Louisiana State University at
Alexandria. Alexandria is in the very center of the Bayou State and is
considered the very "crossroads" of the various and unique cultures of both
Louisiana and the South. The Alexandria airport has regular service between
several major airports (including Houston, Atlanta, and Memphis). Most area
hotels have shuttle service to and from the airport but car rentals are also
available.  Submit a 250-word abstract by e-mail attachment to Dr. Owen 
Elmore
at oelmore@lsua.edu <mailto:oelmore@lsua.edu>. (.doc, .wpd, and .rtf 
formats are
acceptable.) The new abstract submission deadline is changed to July 
1st, 2005.


Our schedule of events and panel topics:

FRIDAY (10/28)

Storyteller's Guild Workshops - 12:00

Storytelling Event - 3:00

Ghost Stories - 7:30

SATURDAY (10/29)

Panel 1 - 8:00

The Rhetoric of Storytelling-

Considering context and audience

Utilizing the unreliable narrator

Panel 2 - 10:00

Private vs. Public Storytelling-

Giving voice to silenced groups

Performance: the body and enchantment

Panel 3 - 1:00

Orality-

Preserving the "Life" of Story: is story writing story killing?

The Bricolage of Telling: the social place & function of the storyteller

Panel 4 - 3:00

Literacy-

The relationship between oral and written narrative forms

Blogging Toward Bethlehem: the impact of the internet on our species-old
need for narrative

Dinner and Entertainment - 6:30



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