A master’s student in philosophy will discuss approaches to evaluating the truthfulness of stories in a free public lecture entitled “Reasoning through Narratives and the Social Contexts of Evaluation,” Thursday, May 2, at 2 p.m. in room 209, Essex Hall.

Jamie Sewell is a student fellow of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric. Her lecture draws on the work of bell hooks and Lois McNay to critique the narrative paradigm of Walter R. Fisher as set out in his 1987 book, Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action.

“Without the inclusion of collaboration as the primary means by which to critically evaluate the reasoning in stories, Fisher’s paradigm does not give us new and appropriate tools by which we can reason through narratives that are constructed within complex social structures of power, domination, and competing interests and values,” says Sewell.