Narrative Workshop - Incite at Columbia University

The Narrative Workshop at Incite Institute assembles researchers across disciplines to discuss narrative from different theoretical and methodological perspectives. 

‘Narrative’ has been theorized and operationalized in myriad ways to capture how (descriptions of) experiences unfold in time. This workshop aims to bring the broad landscape of narrative analysis into view. 

We hope that together participants will develop a richer vocabulary for describing narrative and a stronger understanding of how different methods of narrative analysis yield different insights about social life.

The Narrative Workshop has limited capacity. To inquire about joining, please contact Dian Sheng or Amy Weissenbach.

Organizers

• Dian Sheng, Graduate Fellow, Incite Institute
• Amy Weissenbach, Graduate Fellow, Incite Institute

Faculty Sponsor

• Peter Bearman, Director, Incite Institute

Spring 2025

• February 19, 2025
  Craig Rawlings (Department of Sociology, Duke University): "Peer Networks and Ideological Consistency: How Student Communities Shape Belief Liberalization in Higher Education"
• March 12, 2025
  Chris Baldassano (Department of Psychology, Columbia University): "Using narratives to study perception and memory in the brain"
• March 21, 2025
  Amy Weissenbach (Department of Sociology, Columbia University): "'Here's My Story': Narrativizing Crisis and Agency in Personal Appeals"
• April 16, 2025
  Marta Figlerowicz (Department of Comparative Literature, Yale University): "Narratives of Filiation in Mário de Andrade's Macunaíma"
• May 7, 2025
  Dian Sheng (Department of Sociology, Columbia University): "How Memoirists Learn to Write"

Fall 2024

• September 25, 2024
  Jessica Merrill (Columbia English and Comparative Literature): "Narrative Structure in Time: How to Historicize Theoretical Concepts"
• October 30, 2024
  Ari Adut (UT Austin Sociology): Anarchy of the Republic: The Reign of Terror during the French Revolution
• November 20, 2024
  Jack LaViolette (Columbia Sociology): "Narrative, voice, and anomie in the long 19th century: New approaches to American realist literature"
• December 11, 2024
  Natasha Schüll (NYU Media, Culture and Communication): "Quantify Thyself: The Data-Driven Life"

Spring 2024

• February 22, 2024
  Dennis Tenen (English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University): "Toward a Computational Archaeology of Fictional Space" and "Distributed Agency in the Novel"
• March 21, 2024
  Abla Alaoui-Soce (Psychology, Princeton University): "Investigating the Interplay between our Stories and our Schemas: How story structures inform memory and prediction"
• April 4, 2024
  Wendy Griswold (Sociology, Northwestern University): "Learning about narrative from novelists, politicians, journalists, and sailors"
• April 17, 2024
  Diane Vaughan (Sociology, Columbia University): "Theorizing Narrative: Analogies and Differences" and Emma Miller (Psychology, Columbia University): "Close Relationships as Microcultures"

Fall 2023

• October 12, 2023
  Cassie Fennell (Anthropology, Columbia University): "Rethinking Vacancy, or Thinking with the Going Home" and Peter Bearman (Sociology, Columbia University): "Blocking the Future: New Solutions for Old Problems in Historical Social Science"
• October 24, 2023
  Chris Pandza (Oral History, Columbia University) and Armin Pournaki (Sociology, SciencesPo): "Natural Language Processing In Oral History And Sociology"
• December 14, 2023
  Discussing E. Summerson Carr's Working the Difference: Science, Spirit, and the Spread of Motivational Interviewing