Politics of Storytelling: challenges of storytelling today in light of extreme partisan polarization, racial justice issues within and beyond the cultural industries, COVID, ongoing digital transitions, and other current events.
Biographies
Rebecca F. Kuang ('18) is the Astounding Award-winning and Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award nominated author of The Poppy War and The Dragon Republic (Harper Voyager). Her debut novel The Poppy War won the Crawford Award and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from the University of Cambridge and is currently pursuing an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies at Oxford University on a Marshall Scholarship. She also translates Chinese science fiction to English. She starts her PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale next fall.
Martin Kaplan ('71) directs USC Annenberg's Normal Lear Center, a hub of research and innovation that marshals the power of storytelling as a force for good. Kaplan’s research interests include campaign coverage on local TV news; the effects of public health messages in entertainment; the use of narrative to communicate science; and the impact of the attention economy on democracy. He served as Executive Assistant to the U.S. Commissioner of Education in the Carter Administration and was the chief speechwriter for Vice President Walter F. Mondale. As deputy campaign manager of Mondale’s presidential race, he directed the campaign’s speechwriting, issues and research operations. He also worked at Walt Disney Studios for 12 years, first as vice president of production for live-action feature films, and then as a screenwriter and producer. He holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard in molecular biology, a mater's in English from Cambridge where he studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a PhD in modern thought and literature from Stanford.
Craig Pearson ('14) is a medical student at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. As a Marshall Scholar and NIH Cambridge Scholar, he received a PhD in Clinical Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, where he studied the molecular mechanisms of nerve regeneration in the visual system. His undergraduate training included majors in Neuroscience, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and English at Michigan State University, where he engaged in research on bone implant materials, tissue engineering, and drug delivery systems for treating a genetic blindness disorder. Craig also served as the Undergraduate Lab Manager for the Digital Humanities and Literary Cognition lab, leading neuroimaging research on the cognitive dynamics of literary reading.
Garrett Turner ('12) a proud native of Florence, Alabama is an actor, singer, poet, and playwright. He has been featured in shows such as Law & Order SVU and Madam Secretary. He has acted in venues across the US, including the National Black Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Papermill Playhouse, Syracuse Stage, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Miami New Drama, and the Alliance Theatre. Turner writes at the intersection of moral courage and joy. He is currently writing a play about a young Black man stuck between monogamy and a hard place entitled An Elegy for Patriarchy. He is also writing a musical about a young Black girl from Tennessee who stages a mini revolution in her own church when they ban her from preaching because she's a girl entitled Eleanor: A Church Story. He has an M.A. in Theatre and Performance from Queen Mary University of London and an M.A. in Music Theatre from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Turner is currently an Arts & Social Justice Fellow at Emory University.