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 19
... writing - alphabetic writing in particular - marked an evolutionary advance . Writing frees the mind for original , abstract thought , the argument goes , while oral cultures are imprisoned in the present , uninterested in definitions ...
... writing - alphabetic writing in particular - marked an evolutionary advance . Writing frees the mind for original , abstract thought , the argument goes , while oral cultures are imprisoned in the present , uninterested in definitions ...
Page 133
... writer N. Scott Momaday , author of the novel House Made of Dawn , once used this story to describe how a tra ... write all this off as native romanticism or New Age nonsense , we should remember that this kind of contra- diction ...
... writer N. Scott Momaday , author of the novel House Made of Dawn , once used this story to describe how a tra ... write all this off as native romanticism or New Age nonsense , we should remember that this kind of contra- diction ...
Page 207
... write a proper poem about an improper flower ? the critics asked . It's like having a ceremony to cele- brate barbarism . Even more to the point , how can a poet do it when revolution is abroad ? This was the time of the American and ...
... write a proper poem about an improper flower ? the critics asked . It's like having a ceremony to cele- brate barbarism . Even more to the point , how can a poet do it when revolution is abroad ? This was the time of the American and ...
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