RPF 2016/17: Narrative in Question: Developing the Potential of the ICNS

Original project objectives:
1. To establish York as an internationally leading centre of narrative research, conceived as an interdisciplinary formation extending beyond the humanities to the social sciences and sciences, and embodied in the activity of the ICNS.
The programme of activities has engaged York participants from English, Philosophy, History, TFTV, Psychology, Computer Science, SPRU and Music. It has brought UK visiting academics to York from Sheffield, Queen Mary, Glasgow School of Art and the CNR East London; and international visiting speakers from Tampere, Giessen, Helsinki and Groningen. The work of the ICNS has been promoted at international conferences in the USA, Denmark and Germany by the PI and by York research students.
2. To secure external funding to sustain and build upon the priming activities, and to pursue the core research underpinning the concept of the ICNS, through an application to the AHRC Leadership Fellows Scheme.
The PI's application to the AHRC Leadership Fellows Scheme will be submitted by the end of June. It will provide for an extensive programme of activities within the ICNS, in collaboration with project partners from Denmark, Finland, Germany and the USA.
3. To generate a large collaborative grant application within the domain of interdisciplinary narrative theory, optimized to draw upon the research strengths of York participants across disciplines.
The final event of the Narrative in Question programme on the 15/06/17 included a workshop led by Mark Jenner as Culture and Communication Champion, at which two avenues for the further development of grant projects were identified. One, focussed upon interactive narrative and LARPS, will be pursued by Sebastian Detterding, who undertook to produce a preliminary abstract; the other, to be pursued by Emily Heavey, will address the uses and abuses of narratives of health, with child amputees as a central case study. Richard Walsh would also submit an AHRC Leadership Fellow application aimed at developing the potential of the ICNS as a model for interdisciplinary research in narrative studies in the UK.

Other outcomes: follow-on funding from the English Department RPF scheme for a programme of events sustaining ICNS activity in 2017-18, including two co-funded symposia (with the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies and the Society for Animation Studies). Two PI publications deriving from presentations during the NiQ programme. Financial support, research administration experience and cultivation of academic network for the project graduate assistant. Conference presentation experience for two research students associated with the project.

The project's proposal for the 2017 Festival of Ideas, "Framing: Telling the Stories of Things in Film" was not selected by the Festival Moderation Panel.