Join us for the next RE-SET seminar on 12 March from 2-3.15pm with Professor Arran Stibbe. Please register for the online meeting link.

Professor Stibbe's presentation begins with the idea that the current stories that underpin our unequal and unsustainable industrial civilisation are not working, and it is up to ethical leaders to search for new stories to live by and present them in inspiring ways. It then continues to discuss the concept of econarrative – stories that involve not only humans but other species in interaction with each other and the physical environment – and how they are necessary to base a new ecological civilisation on. The talk is based on the new online course The Search for New Stories to Live By: econarrative and ethical leadership (www.storiescourse.org/new) and Arran’s latest book Econarrative: ethics ecology and the search for new narratives to live by (Bloomsbury 2024).

Meet the speaker

Professor Arran Stibbe, Professor of Narrative Ecology, University of Gloucestershire

My research and teaching examines how language encodes the stories we live by, and shapes how we see ourselves and our relationship with other animals and the earth. This involves linguistic analysis of a wide range of discourses, from advertising which encourages people to buy unnecessary and ecologically damaging products, to the inspirational language of nature writing.

Teaching

My areas of teaching include communication for leadership, language and ethics, identity, ecolinguistics, and critical discourse analysis.

Research

My research uses critical discourse analysis to analyse texts which are central in establishing identities and shaping society. I have analysed the discursive construction of health, illness, animals, masculinity, the environment, and disability.

My latest research examines global literature in the search for inspiring forms of language to help us reconnect with the natural world. As it becomes increasingly clear that the current stories that industrial society is based on are leading towards inequality and environmental destruction, the task of searching for new stories to live by becomes increasingly urgent. Literature is a key source for these new stories since it provides gateways to other possible worlds.