Presented by: Fritz Breithaupt
Abstract: We all know a good story when we hear it. And yet, researchers vastly disagree about what constitutes a narrative. Anything close to a general formula of narratives has been elusive. In this talk, I will describe how I see the core challenge to understand storytelling. In a nutshell, we have to bring two aspects of storytelling together: 1) narratives as emotion episodes that end in a happy end and 2) narratives as a creative multiplicity that lead us to consider alternatives to the events. The talk will first summarize new research on narrative cognition from a range of fields, including neuroscience and psychology, then will add insights from the experimental humanities from my own lab, and will culminate in a brief list of recommendations.