Cover of the original Telling Sexual Stories (1995) by Everard Longland
I gave this lecture at the Huddersfield Conference TROUBLING NARRATIVES: IDENTITY MATTERS on June 20th 2014.In this lecture I revisited my study Telling Sexual Stories, published nearly twenty years ago. I began by considering the background – how it came to be written. I then asked what its original contributions might have been; and highlighted four: a model of story telling, a typology of story genres, the significance of change and especially postmodernism; and the development of a politics of storytelling. I asked how the world has moved on in many ways since then and ‘upgraded’ some of its arguments and examples. I concluded by suggesting the need for a Politics of Story Telling, and outline directions for this: empirically, analytically and normatively. I focused especially on the need for humanist narratives of grounded utopian hope to help us move towards a better human world for all.
You can find the handout here: Telling Sexual Stories
