Storying the Self: (Re)Claiming our Voices

Engage with lived experiences and identities that have often been denied a public voice. Consider the nuanced contexts of race, gender, class, language, ability, and how these impact your position as a leader and creator. You’ll question what it means to reclaim your narrative of yourself and to engage with the strength of vulnerability as a leader and creator. In a creative exercise, you’ll engage with multiple perspectives on a past conflict and use this reflection to practice perspective-taking and listening that can generate creative work and deepen leadership skills for empathy, listening and engaging in multicultural workplaces.

• Questioning stories — How Stories Function in Society
• This week we'll dive more deeply into aspects of our social identities, how they relate to our access to resources, voice, and choice, and how they shape our stories of ourselves. We'll also take a look at the four types of stories: stock stories, concealed stories, resistance stories, and transformative stories to better understand how stories are used within our cultural contexts.
• Critical Witnessing, Vulnerability and Stories
• This week we reflect on what it means to receive the stories others share. We'll also practice deep listening and noticing.
• Stories Hidden Within Structures and Systems
• This week we consider stories of individual experiences within structures and systems that add greater nuance to the stock or dominant narratives we hear. We will consider what is possible when we complicate common stereotypes and consider the ways that power interacts with these stories.
• Stories that Move Us Into Questioning, Into Action
• This week we consider how honoring the stories in our bodies and the empathy that arises when we deeply hear others' stories and perspectives can move us into action.