If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground“We need to understand our stories because our lives depend upon it.” —Ted Chamberlin The stories we tell each other reflect and shape our deepest feelings. Stories help us live our lives—and are at the heart of our current conflicts. We love and hate because of them; we make homes for ourselves and drive others out on the basis of ancient tales. As Ted Chamberlin vividly reveals, we are both connected by them and separated by their different truths. Whether Jew or Arab, black or white, Muslim or Christian, Catholic or Protestant, man or woman, our stories hold us in thrall and hold others at bay. Like the work of Joseph Campbell and Bruce Chatwin, this vital, engrossing book offers a new way to understand the hold that stories and songs have on us, and a new sense of the urgency of doing so. Drawing on his own experience in many fields—as scholar and storyteller, witness among native peoples and across cultures—Ted Chamberlin takes us on a journey through the tales of different peoples, from North America to Africa and Jamaica. Beautifully written, with insight and deep understanding, If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? examines why it is now more important than ever to attend to what others are saying in their stories and myths—and what we are saying about ourselves. Only then will we understand why they have such power over us. |
From inside the book
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Page 132
... recognize their connection with what I had learned sometime earlier , how to speak and listen . I had learned to be comfortable with a cat that is both there and not there . I often use the example of tracking to underline how ancient ...
... recognize their connection with what I had learned sometime earlier , how to speak and listen . I had learned to be comfortable with a cat that is both there and not there . I often use the example of tracking to underline how ancient ...
Page 153
... recognize to the everyday . With my old friends the cowboys , the same was true . They accepted the crippling and sometimes deadly uncertainties of their lives with a fatalism that was tragic and comic by turns , generating a tradition ...
... recognize to the everyday . With my old friends the cowboys , the same was true . They accepted the crippling and sometimes deadly uncertainties of their lives with a fatalism that was tragic and comic by turns , generating a tradition ...
Page 223
... recognize the border may be the singer's or storyteller's fault as much as our own . But even if it is not always ... recognized it in our own culture we can identify it in others . That's the beginning of moving beyond Them and Us ...
... recognize the border may be the singer's or storyteller's fault as much as our own . But even if it is not always ... recognized it in our own culture we can identify it in others . That's the beginning of moving beyond Them and Us ...
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If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground J. Edward Chamberlin Limited preview - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
aboriginal Achilles Africa Americas asked Australia barbaric believe Blackfoot blackheart buffalo Bunny Wailer Bushmen calculus called century ceremony of belief civilized conflict contradiction course cowboys cultures death Derek Walcott Don McKay Dorze Doukhobor dream essay fact faith father Fort Macleod Gitksan give Grand Coulee Dam Greeks Halldór Laxness herd homeland horses human Iain Crichton Smith Ian Tyson imagination Indian Khomani kind Kowanyama land language listen live look mathematicians mathematics metaphor mountains myths native natural Navajo never Odysseus once painted poem poet question Rastafari Rastafarian reality recognize rhymes riddle river sacred sense settlers sheep units sing society sometimes sorrow speak spirits stories and songs storytellers strange talking tell things thought tion told traditions translated treaties true Truganini truth turned understand West wonder words