Monday, October 12, 2020, 11:30 AM – 1 PM EDT

Robyn Fivush, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute for the Liberal Arts and Marshall Duke, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Psychology

“A Conversation about Family Storytelling”

Stories are fundamentally the way that humans understand their world and themselves. In today’s Colloquium, Professors Fivush and Duke will discuss the research they’ve done over the past two decades that has documented the critical importance of family storytelling across the generations as a way for individuals, especially young adults, to form a sense of identity and bolster their psychological well-being. Several longitudinal research projects conducted in Emory’s Family Narratives Lab and Emory’s Center on Myth and Ritual in American Life have helped to demonstrate that, especially when challenging events occur (events like a pandemic, perhaps), families that are able to tell stories of perseverance and resilience provide their members with a sense of individual meaning and purpose that can help them meet the challenge—and survive--and even thrive. Duke and Fivush have published many papers on this topics, both together and individually, including Fivush’s 2019 book, Family Narratives and the Development of an Autobiographical Self (Routledge).