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. |
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Page 162
... metaphor contains a riddle , and every good one courts nonsense . After a while , any metaphor begins to lose its strangeness and to become so familiar that it seems simply true . That's not good ; which is what the American writer ...
... metaphor contains a riddle , and every good one courts nonsense . After a while , any metaphor begins to lose its strangeness and to become so familiar that it seems simply true . That's not good ; which is what the American writer ...
Page 163
... Metaphor is the basic trick of language , and we are some- times impatient with tricksters . But the door between reality and the imagination can't do without a hinge . " Shall I com- pare thee to a summer's day ? " asks Shakespeare ...
... Metaphor is the basic trick of language , and we are some- times impatient with tricksters . But the door between reality and the imagination can't do without a hinge . " Shall I com- pare thee to a summer's day ? " asks Shakespeare ...
Page 190
... metaphor for home ; home is a metaphor for Africa . This rever- sal of the direction of metaphor is vintage Rastafari , and for Ras Kumi it represents the only kind of imagining that can resist the grotesque pressure of historical ...
... metaphor for home ; home is a metaphor for Africa . This rever- sal of the direction of metaphor is vintage Rastafari , and for Ras Kumi it represents the only kind of imagining that can resist the grotesque pressure of historical ...
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
LOSING | 74 |
REALITY AND THE IMAGINATION | 94 |
Copyright | |
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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 American asked Australia become beginning believe bring called century ceremony choice civilized claim comes contradiction course cowboy cultures death described dream English especially fact faith father feel Gitksan give hand happen heart hold horses human hundred idea imagination important Indian John kind knew land language later listen live look meaning metaphor mind mountains move native natural Navajo never North once poem poet question reality recognize represented rhymes river sacred seemed sense settlers side sing society sometimes sounds speak spirits stories and songs storytellers strange talking tell things thought told traditions translated true truth turned understand United West wonder written