Week 6 Story Laboratory: Ted Talk Videos

Ted Talk Videos

The first video, the Danger of a Single Story with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, really resonated with me.  She discusses how only reading American and British books created a world for her where Africans or other types of people did not exist in literature.  I think that is a big problem in today’s educational world.  We focus on European literature, American literature, and forget that there are authors/playwrights/poets in other countries and other places with other nationalities that are just as accomplished and talented.  We lose the ability to expand ourselves and our capacity for understanding.  I think that this makes me even more excited about taking this class.

The second video talks about the relationship between ourselves and fictional characters.  Jennifer Barnes discusses the time we spend on fictional characters and why we do this.  Reading is more than visiting a new place, exploring new circumstances, but also about bonding with the characters and creating connections with an experience and people, even if it is fictional.  She calls it parasocial relationship, the kind that you can have with fictional characters by consuming media about them.

After watching these videos, I really felt like reviewing my goals as a writer.  I want to be able to create these kind of experiences for readers, allowing them to connect with my characters but also learn that there is more experiences than their own or that their own experiences are not singular.  These two videos really capitalized on connection, connection to either our own world or a connection with new experiences.