I attended the symposium panel that was held in room 382 of the Museum of Art, at 1:30 on Thursday afternoon. It was titled "Motifs and Narratives of Faith," and each of the three speakers had fascinating topics. I really enjoyed it, especially the first and the last speakers.
The first speaker was a Weber State professor by the name of Mail Subbuah. He actually focused more on the non-Christian denominations, Buddhism in particular. It was really interesting to learn more about some of the motifs of that religion, and though I won't go in to greater detail about it now, I really enjoyed it.
The next speaker also had an interesting paper on fairy tales and tradition and how stories are retold. The final speaker, though, was my favorite, she spoke about the importance of imagination and stories to humanity as a whole. She talked about how many of the stories we read today are "thoughtless stories" and how (because stories shape our culture and life, etc.) this leads to "thoughtless" people. Because of this, she argued that we need to use both our imagination and our reason to create "thinking stories" (the opposite, she said, of "thoughtless stories"), and to be active readers that give meaning to both the stories we read and life. It was a kind of complex but powerful argument, and I'm glad I was there to hear it.
That does sound interesting, and it makes a lot of sense. I feel like a lot of the stories that I read do not make me stop and reflect on them, or I might not take the time to stop and reflect. I feel like the more I try to personally learn from what I read instead of just mindlessly moving on to the next thing, the more I become an active reader, no matter what I am reading.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great point! There are so many stories and books and everything floating around today that don't really lead us to anything. That's probably exactly why it's hard to identify a national literary landscape the way we used to, and why the last however many years or so haven't really produced anything that we could call the great American novel.
ReplyDeleteWow, that sounds really thought provoking. I know I wonder sometimes with a lot of entertainment whether it actually helps people think about the world or if it just makes them excited because of the violence, drama, etc. I think it really does depend on the person though, because something could be thought provoking for one person and just entertainment for someone else, depending on how they react to it.
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