The question I seek to answer is: what kinds of public narratives do people consider formative in their lives, and by what processes do they adapt and internalize them into their worldview? I plan to conduct recorded interviews that attempt to get at the general question of what stories have been most important and formative in the subject’s life. Concurrent with recording these interviews, I will analyze and interpret them through the lenses of religious studies and literary analysis By the time I am done analyzing these interviews, I hope to have an idea of what types of stories the subjects find essential, and the value they place on certain types of stories. I hope that the synthesis of literary and religious studies, when applied to ethnographic work, will improve our understanding of how the two play integral roles in how we construct ourselves and narrativize our experiences. As I find out what narratives are meaningful to my interview subjects, I will also be bringing to light what stories my subjects consider to be “legitimate” and acceptable as sources for inspiration. My research may reveal the implicit criteria my subjects used to make these decisions.

My two advisors for this project are Diane Fruchtman from the Religion department and Richard Miller from the English department.