Theory and Practice

There is always a gap between the theories we work with at the university and their application in society. Sometimes we appear to focus on questions that are of little interest to society at large, at other times it seems as if the university's job is to prove / disprove notions and opinions commonly held in society.

Creating and sharing stories is part of our daily interaction in society, from the stories we tell others to the stories we tell ourselves. Every single day, we are surrounded by stories. Some of them we obviously identify as such, like novels and films, or stories told in song lyrics, jokes told in conversation, etc. Others are more difficult to identify, since we not only read stories in the form of newspapers and blog entries, but also in the form of accompanying statistics, charts and photographs.

How do we tell stories and why do we tell them? And is storytelling just a means of communication in our interaction with others, or do we also tell stories to ourselves everyday? 

Theory and Practice seeks to bridge the gap between common notions of what stories are and academic approaches to researching such stories. Classes connected to Theory and Practice are offered for first and second year students at the level of the Vertiefungsmodul, Intermediate module and some also in the Methodenmodul.