18 March 2020

The Search for New Stories to Live By

Arran Stibbe

Society is structured by stories. The stories underlie the texts that surround us in everyday life, and often go unnoticed, but can influence how we think, talk and act. They are the stories we live by. While some are working well, others are contributing to inequality and environmental destruction. The talk begins by reading between the lines of everyday texts to reveal harmful hidden stories, and then turns to literary texts in the hope of discovering ways to reimagine the society we live in.

Arran Stibbe is a Professor of Ecological Linguistics at the University of Gloucestershire. He has an academic background in both linguistics and human ecology and combines the two in his research and teaching. He is the founder of the International Ecolinguistics Association, and is author of Animals Erased: discourse, ecology and reconnection with nature and Ecolinguistics: language, ecology and the stories we live by (Routledge). He was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy for teaching excellence, and has published widely on ecolinguistics and discourse analysis.