Tales of wisdom

Supervisors:

• Maria Ioannou
• Theisje Dorsten

Let me tell you a story: “Once upon a time there was…”. Stories are part of us, as individuals, as part of our social and cultural groups and as a species.

Folktales are a type of story that originate from a people (folk) and which serve to entertain but also to pass down practices, beliefs and other types of wisdom from generation to generation; hence our reference to them as tales of wisdom. As such they are testimonies of the social and cultural identity of the people sharing them.

Some folktales have become well-known stories, which have found their way into the collective memory of communities and have traveled beyond the borders of a folk to become shared stories of many. Other stories remain more hidden, and thus disclose their morals and values only to the folk they originate from. Such can be the case for stories shared within minority communities in a certain socio-cultural context.

Our project focuses on these hidden stories and it relies on the notion that these stories carry psychological importance for the folk which share them but can also form a window into the values, beliefs and worldviews of a certain folk. Can we find and collect less known tales and how do we curate and share them whilst doing justice to their cultural origin and the people they belong to? What can we learn about others from these stories and what do we find out about ourselves?

Note

This project is linked to the Erasmus+ -funded project DigiFolk, which is a collaboration between four universities (University Belgrade, University of Cyprus, Social Sciences University of Ankara, and the University of Groningen) and it is designed to collect and curate folktales of marginalized communities in the respective cities where these university are located. In the Y1 project Tales of Wisdom, students will work in small groups to explore ways to collect, curate, and share folktales. They will work towards presenting a story through writing, acting or illustrating and learn from experts in the field. All findings will be used in the DigiFolk project as examples. Students participating in Tales of Wisdom will therefore have a unique opportunity to contribute to and collaborate in an international study and learn how to use stories as a way to convey wisdom and learn from others.