New book on storytelling, edited by Professor Hanna Meretoja, launched at Cohen Quad

Professor Hanna Meretoja, a Visiting Fellow at Exeter College, has co-edited a new scholarly collection on narrative interpretations’ effects on reality. The book is entitled The Use and Abuse of Stories: New Directions in Narrative Hermeneutics. Hanna Meretoja is Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of SELMA: Centre for Memory at the University of Turku in Finland. Her research primarily centres on the fields of narrative theory, narrative ethics, life-writing studies, cultural memory studies, trauma studies, and critical medical humanities. Mark P. Freeman, Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society at the College of the Holy Cross, edited the work alongside Professor Meretoja. Earlier this month, Exeter College hosted a launch event for the book at our Cohen Quad site.

The Use and Abuse of Stories is an interdisciplinary work examining how stories are interpreted and how they affect issues of truth, facts, and narrative. Topics covered in the book range from the dangers of political narratives to questions of truth in medical and psychiatric practices. The book ultimately paves the way for understanding narrative as a meaning-making practice that is essential for us to understand who we are and who we could be.

Learn more about The Use and Abuse of Stories here.