Below please find the initial invitation to join the ICS Narrative and Culture Research Cluster, a further explanation of its purpose, and the cluster proposal put together by Professor Val Rohy (Department of English) in Fall 2000 through Spring 2001. The cluster met through 2003.

PART 1: initial organizing letter/ invitation to join, plus an email letter further clarifying the group's purpose.

From: Val Rohy
Subject: Narrative/Culture

November 30, 2000

Dear colleagues,

I'm writing to let you know about a new ICS
interdisciplinary cluster group forming around the topic
"Narrative and Culture." The group will draw on recent
work in narrative criticism, literary theory, and cultural
studies, addressing such issues as:

* Historical narratives/reconstructing the past
* Cultural memory and amnesia
* National narratives of self-definition
* Regression and anticipation
* Narrative and sexuality: productive and unproductive ends
* Time lines, temporality, and teleology
* Race and ethnicity: dominant and resistant narratives
* Telling stories in film, television, and news media
* Polyvocality and postmodernism

Vicki Patraka suggested that you might like to be involved
in the group, or might know someone else who would. Please
let me know if you're interested or if you have any
suggestions. I'd like to refine the topic in the next few
weeks and plan an organizational meeting early in the
spring semester.

Thank you.

Val Rohy
English Department

--------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 07:06:06 -0800 (PST)
From: Valerie Rohy
Subject: Narrative and Culture

Hello everyone,

Thanks for your interest in the Narrative and Culture
cluster group. A little more information for those who
asked (apologies to those who are already familiar with the
ICS clusters): The Narrative and Culture group takes its
cue from two existing cluster groups of faculty and grad
students, one addressing transnational cultural identities,
the other on youth cultures in the twentieth century.

Following those models, the Narrative and Culture group
would aim to foster an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas.
The group would meet regularly (every 3 or 4 weeks) to
provide a forum for discussion and work in progress. It
could also initiate and plan events (speakers, colloquia,
conferences) related to its topics.

To a large extent, however, the focus of the group will be
determined by its participants. What do you want? What
kinds of intellectual exchange and collegial support would
be useful? How might the topic be reframed in relation to
your concerns? What structure would best fit your schedule?

Please send any thoughts or suggestions, and feel free to
pass this along to others who might be interested. Also, so
that I can plan an organizational meeting for January,
please let me know what evenings you cannot meet.

Thanks again. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Val Rohy

Part 2: Proposal for the Cluster (submitted in 2001)

N A R R A T I V E & C U L T U R E

Interdisciplinary Research Cluster
Institute for the Study of Culture and Society
Bowling Green State University

PROPOSAL

Overview
This new interdisciplinary cluster group provides a forum
for structured scholarly exchange among BGSU faculty and
graduate students studying narrative forms in cultural
contexts. Focusing on new approaches to narrative from
cultural, historical, literary, semiotic, feminist, queer,
and ethnic-studies perspectives, it offers collegial
support of ongoing research and cross-disciplinary
conversation on new understandings of narrative and
narrative theory.

Rationale
The study of narrative is distinctly suited to
interdisciplinary inquiry because narrative is itself
essentially interdisciplinary, structuring multiple realms
of culture and experience. In recent years, responding to a
new recognition of the wider significance of narrative in
culture, the study of narrative has re-emerged as a central
concern in the humanities and has begun a crucial process
of redefinition. The structuralist strand of narratology
has given way to a proliferation of critical stories about
narrative. Broadening its sphere from literary studies to
include a wide range of cultural productions, narrative
theory has become politically implicated in new ways, as
groundbreaking studies address cultural narratives and
metanarratives; relations between public narratives and
public policy; questions of hegemony and social discipline,
and narrative constructions of gender, sexuality, race, and
nationalism. No longer limited to studies of the novel and
literary genre, multi-disciplinary and methodologically
diverse studies of narrative now address the ways in which
narrative organizes, and is itself inflected by, cultural
productions of meaning.

Goals
1. Offer a structured forum for interdisciplinary dialogue
on narrative and culture; and facilitate the exchange of
ideas, theoretical models, and methodologies across
disciplinary boundaries.

2. Support and strengthen members' individual research
though readings of work in progress, commentary on new
proposals, and focused suggestions for revisions.

3. Provide occasion for discussions of selected readings in
narrative theory, and sustain an ongoing effort to assemble
a bibliography of theoretical sources.

4. Create opportunities for collaborative research and
interdisciplinary projects or partnerships.

5. Support courses on narrative and culture at BGSU through
discussion of ideas and syllabi, and promote inquiry into
the ways in which cultural narratives operate in the
classroom.

6. After the group's initial building stage, plan public
events (speakers, colloquia, seminars, conferences) that
extend the group's activities and enrich the BGSU
community.

7. After the group's initial building stage, enable and
enhance both individual and group applications for external
grant funding.

Activities
1. Holding a monthly reading/discussion group on narrative
theory and work in progress
2. Creating and maintaining a web page on the BGSU server
as a resource for narrative studies
3. Arranging a public colloquium at BGSU and
lecture/seminar by a visiting scholar for 2001-02

Participants
The following faculty and graduate students are currently
pursuing research related to our topic and have expressed
an interest in participating in the group:

[names and brief bios have been deleted]