Skip to main content

Story Lab: TED Talk Videos



For this Story Lab, I watched Ted Talks about stories and storytelling. The first video is the TED Talk of a woman named Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from Nigeria. From a young age, she has been a storyteller. She read foreign books for much of her childhood and based the stories she wrote based on what she read in these books. She eventually discovered books and she learned that writers could look like her. When she came to university in the United States, her roommate was surprised to learn Nigeria has English as an official language and that she was familiar with many of the comforts of American life. She believes people like her roommate have a view of Africans because of writing that portrays them as living in a dark place. When Chimamanda wrote a book, her professor told her the book was not "African enough" because the characters were similar to him, a middle-class man, and they drove cars. When she visited Mexico, she realized she saw the people there as poor immigrants based on what she read about them in the news. She believes storytelling often shows the differences between people rather than the similarities and stories should tell several facets of a person's life, rather than just one. 

In the second video,  OU psychology professor Jennifer Barnes wonders why people spend so much time reading fiction and what effects this has on us. Specifically, she looks at the engagement readers have with fictional characters and why readers care so much about these characters. We feel connected to characters because we know what they do and think in intimate moments, despite knowing they will never know who we are. To see what effects "losing" a fictional character has on a person, Barnes had participants rate how sad they would be if their favorite character died and how sad they would be if an acquaintance died. Men's responses were almost equal for the two, but women overall said they would be more sad about the death of their favorite character. 

Both videos showed me that stories can play a major role in psychology. This first video showed that people can often become stuck with one idea about a person based on the stories they hear about them even though there is so much more about that person. The second video showed that people can become very invested in fiction, especially through the connections they feel to characters. The two videos are proof that stories can be very important to people and their perceptions of others. 


Harry Potter by Dave Catchpole

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Week 11 Story: How Flower Stole Sunlight

Long ago, when only plants lived on earth, Redwoods were the only ones who had sunlight. All the other plants wanted sunlight too, but Redwoods were taller than everyone else. They stole the sunlight before it could reached any of the other plants.  The other plants lived in darkness and fear but Redwoods refused to share sunlight with anyone else.  The other plants decided to hold a council to discuss the growing worry they had about living in darkness. Meanwhile, Redwoods held their own council in the light. They set up guards to protect themselves from having other plants try to come take sunlight from them.  But Flower had taken root near where the Redwoods were having their meeting before the guards set up. While the Redwoods had their meeting, a small bit of sunlight crept towards Flower. Flower hid a little bit of sunlight in its petals and slowly started moving back towards the other plants' meeting.  Before Flower could escape, however, the Redwoods no...

Reading Notes: South African Folktales, Part B

In the story "Jackal, Dove, and Heron," Dove lives on top of a rock. Jackal asks Dove for one of her children, and she says no. Jackal says he will fly up if she does not give him one of her little ones. She throws one down, and Jackal returns day after day to take more of Dove's children. Heron sees that Dove is sad and asks her what is wrong. She tells Heron than she must give Jackal her children or else he will fly up and take them. Heron calls Dove foolish and tells her that Jackal cannot fly. When Jackal returns the next day and asks Dove to throw one of her little ones down to him, she tells him no and tells him that Heron has told her that Jackal cannot fly to take them. Jackal finds Heron at the water. Jackal asks Heron how he stands in different situations, and when Heron bends his neck down, Jackal hit him on the neck and broke it in the middle. This is why the Heron's neck is bent. This story is almost entirely written in dialogue, and each line of dialo...

Reading Notes: Adam and Eve, Part B

The stories "They Die a First Time" and "Suicide and the Salvation" take place after Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit in the garden and have been punished by God. Both stories are written from a third person perspective. In my story, I could write from one the character's perspectives. In the stories, it is difficult to understand what Adam and Eve are thinking when it comes to their actions; telling a story from their perspective would be give some insight into why they do what they do. Telling the story from God's perspective would also be interesting. Like the reader, God watches Adam and Eve, but telling the story from his point of view might make the audience feel closer to the story. There are many recurring themes throughout these two stories. The first that stood out to me was death. There are several instances in which Adam and Eve die, come close to dying, look like they are dying, or think they are dying. The fear of dying is also very preva...