First workshop in York for the NarCS group

Posted on 19 July 2012

The Narrative and Complex Systems group met for the first time last week to explore the potential for interdisciplinary research bringing together narrative theory and complexity science.

The two-day workshop, funded by an English Department Research Priming Award, was held in the Ron Cooke Hub on the 11th and 12th of July. Its main purpose was to initiate a dialogue between narrative theorists and complexity scientists, with a view to developing substantial research projects about the relation between these two conceptual paradigms in a variety of fields and case studies.

The ten participants came from a broad spectrum of disciplines across the humanities and the social and natural sciences, and from universities across the UK and Europe. Many were meeting for the first time, and the main business of the workshop was to enable all the participants to present their work and its possible relevance to the interface between narratives and complexity.

The exploration of different disciplinary perspectives was intellectually exciting in itself, and opened up some important lines of research. The workshop also involved extended discussion and evaluation of the possible fit betweeen these research prospects and a range of funding opportunities from UK research councils and charitable foundations, and from EU funds.

For a full record of the discussion, see the report on NarCS workshop 1.