The conversation will bring the historian's record of the past and the planner's projection of the future together with the literary critic's understanding that all such records and projections are constructed stories which stipulate their own definitions of facts, of the past, and of the future. It will also be an unusual conversation beyond academia including urban practitioners from Iowa and other states. What is at stake in such intertwined narratives is the fate of U.S. cities, for this future depends on, in large part, the ability of various urban practitioners and theoreticians to hear the multiple stories of all those groups and individuals who have a stake in the economic well-being, environmental health, social justice, and ethical vivacity of urban life. As long as one assumes that numbers convey facts and that stories convey feelings, those who work to produce numbers and those who work to produce narratives are likely to misunderstand one another. This seminar is posited on the premise that multiple ways of defining and conveying persuasive facts are storytelling and that this storytelling is a necessary and sustaining humanistic activity.
Maps tell stories.
Tables of numbers tell stories. These and many other media are representations of reality that require knowledge to be read and interpreted. Each session of the seminar will test this humanistic premise. Each storyteller will provide at least one case study. This brief description cannot do justice to the exciting experience and expertise that these ten people bring to the symposium.