What’s your story?
Seen through a historical lens, most societies have one or even several grand narratives that attempt to explain their existence. Some story, myth, constitution, poem, or song that claims a logical place for its people and its laws, values, government, etc.
A grand narrative, or metanarrative, is a postmodern concept that highlights the way a society legitimizes itself. It focuses on the heroes and the great accomplishments of a nation, and fits them into bit-size stories fit for schoolchildren.
If you were to look back at our society in the distant future, what do you think the grand narrative would be? And in analyzing this narrative, what other stories would we find are missing? Are we – can we – be aware of the grand narrative that we live in at all, or is it something that only becomes apparent over distance and time? And even more problematically – are we even living in an age with a grand narrative, or are we so lost in postmodern buffoonery that there is no central story left to grasp at anymore?
EXISTENTIAL TUESDAYS
Existential Tuesdays are small weekly* lunch discussions in the Nook of the TUD Library. Practice your critical thinking skills, learn to see the world from different perspectives, and hang out with your fellow deep thinkers in Delft.
Interested in other events in the Nook? Sign up for the newsletter to find out what else we’re planning.
* no sessions during exam weeks or study weeks
Explore SG’s and the TUD Library’s related events this quarter on the theme: Language x Power
The stories we tell construct our reality, shaping our minds and the way we see the world, ourselves, and each other. But who wrote these stories, and to what end? Are we telling ourselves tales to liberate or dominate, to hope or despair? Can we tell those stories differently? And if so, what would we change?
11 Feb 12:45 | Existential Tuesday: What is language? @ TUD Library, the Nook
18 Feb 12:45 | Existential Tuesday: What would life look like in a scientific dictatorship? @TUD Library, the Nook
25 Feb 12:45 | Existential Tuesday: How do you become wise? @ TUD Library, the Nook
27 Feb 12:45 | Writing Huddle: Body Language @ TUD Library, the Nook
27 Feb – 27 May | Exhibition ‘In the Beginning was the’ @ TUD Library Hall
27 Feb 16:00 | Exhibition Opening Reception
3 March 20:30u | SG’s Critical Mass: Kolonialisme en taal: wie claimt het verhaal? @ Theater de Veste (in Dutch)
4 March 12:45 | Existential Tuesday: What is our culture’s grand narrative? @ TUD Library, the Nook
11 March 12:45 | Existential Tuesday: A workshop in paradoxical logic @ TUD Library, the Nook
13 March 16:30-18:30 | Politics of the Unsaid | Negation x Writing Workshop @ TUD Library
18 March 12:45 | Existential Tuesday: How do you manipulate people with words? @ TUD Library, the Nook
20 March 19:00 | Documentary Film night | The Mindscape of Alan Moore | VOX Film Club @ TUD Library
29 March SG’s festival For Love of the World @ Theater de Veste
