Finding Your Story

Life challenges us to become aware of the stories that shape us--family stories, cultural mythologies, even popular movies, television shows, and songs--and then create and live our own story. We face this challenge throughout our lives but perhaps most acutely as we move into adulthood; this is the period when we most need to become conscious of stories and their power, to gather wisdom, practices, and resources for finding our own story. This class, designed with seniors in mind, will illuminate and explore these resources and give you the opportunity to reflect deeply, in discussion and writing, on what truly calls to you in this life. We will engage with some of the world's great stories--myths, parables, teaching tales, modern fiction, even aphorisms, koans, and riddles. In them we can find both elements that resonate with our own story and provocations that help us unearth and cultivate our native gifts--the genius in each of us. We will look at short excerpts from masterworks and myths from around the world, all voices in the largest conversation we have as humans, the one that asks: who am I? why am I here? what truly matters? how can I be happy? Together we will investigate how these stories, and stories like them, can be used to help us find our own story. Students in this course will have a special opportunity to meet personally with poet Billy Collins and singer Aimee Mann when they visit campus in April. Does not fulfill NSC requirement. For students who have completed the first level of the writing requirement and want further work in developing writing abilities, especially within discipline-specific contexts and nonfiction genres. Individual conferences with instructor and peer workshops. Prerequisite: first level of the writing requirement or equivalent transfer credit. For more information, see http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/cgi-bin/drupal_pwr/advanced_pwr.