Abstract
In one of Greg Denning's last essays, 'performing Cross-Culturally', he offers this credo:
We never learn truths by being told them. We learn truths by experiencing them in some way. The Theatre of our stories is where we let our readers experience truths. Our readers will never discover the actualities of the past by having theory spouted at them. They have to discover through our artfulness how larger than itself is very particularity.
This resonates with Walter Benjamin's insight in his essay, "The Storyteller,' when he recalls an old German axiom that can be translated as something like" 'when you have gone through a journey, you have a story to tell.' Glossing this axiom, Benjamin explains that narrative is a powerful means of accounting for experience.
We never learn truths by being told them. We learn truths by experiencing them in some way. The Theatre of our stories is where we let our readers experience truths. Our readers will never discover the actualities of the past by having theory spouted at them. They have to discover through our artfulness how larger than itself is very particularity.
This resonates with Walter Benjamin's insight in his essay, "The Storyteller,' when he recalls an old German axiom that can be translated as something like" 'when you have gone through a journey, you have a story to tell.' Glossing this axiom, Benjamin explains that narrative is a powerful means of accounting for experience.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Once Upon a Time |
| Subtitle of host publication | Australian Writers on Using the Past |
| Editors | Paul Ashton, Anna Clark, Robert Crawford |
| Place of Publication | North Melbourne |
| Publisher | Australian Scholarly Publishing |
| Chapter | 6 |
| Pages | 74-84 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781925333985 |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 |