UCI’s Center for Storytelling launched this summer to serve as an umbrella for storytelling events and workshops on campus. Under the direction of Barry Siegel and Dr. Patricia Pierson, the center seeks to refine and harness the skill of storytelling for UCI students and the broader community.
“Storytelling is at the heart of what it means to be human,” Siegel, director of UCI’s Literary Journalism Program, said.
Being the first of its kind in the UC system, the idea for the center bloomed from conversations that occurred among the literary journalism faculty. Associate Director of the Literary Journalism Department, Dr. Pierson, felt that many students across the campus and community had stories to tell, but did not fully understand the best way to tell them.
“We wanted to help; we wanted to share our appreciation and excitement for true storytelling with the academy and the public,” Siegel said. “Narrative, after all, is at the center of our lives, and human beings are hard-wired for stories. The telling of stories helps us to understand ourselves, connect with others, form memories, and make sense of our world.”
According to Siegel, the Literary Journalism program has asked UCI students not to take on stories that involve going out into the world in order to interview, observe or talk to people face-to-face due to the COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of the Spring 2020 quarter. Although everything is remote as of now, the center hopes to eventually become a physical hub for people in need of storytelling tools such as computers, podcast recording equipment and especially for those seeking advice from writing mentors.
“Most valuable of all, they now rely heavily on archival research, drawing from library databases, internet searches, diaries, letters, legal documents and shoeboxes in the attic,” Siegel said. “As many literary journalists do, our students now often straddle the line between journalism and history as they practice the fine art of reconstruction.”
In the future, the Center for Storytelling plans to launch a storytelling laboratory using an app called StoryCorps. Siegel said that this app will allow users of the center to, “… record, listen to and share life narratives.”
Siegel and Dr. Pierson have communicated that they are working to ensure that The Center for Storytelling is a place where users can practice and study the art of storytelling in a way that caters to their unique backgrounds.
“Our center brings together stakeholders from diverse communities, ranging from community members hoping to record a family history, to undergraduate students learning how to report and write nonfiction narratives, to scholars of literary journalism, to practitioners in the field and career professionals who hope to deepen their knowledge and skills,” Siegel said.
Aside from the lab, the center will also be hosting or co-sponsoring a range of events this academic year, including the Humanities Center’s year-long Stories from the Sea student internship program, and the Humanities Center’s “Oceans” program.
The center plans to continue supporting student interns by offering course credits to those selected by campus media outlets, such as the New University and KUCI News.
More information about the Center for Storytelling is available on the School of Humanities website.
Jamie Luke is a Campus News Intern for the winter 2021 quarter. They can be reached at jnluke@uci.edu
