Critical Storytelling in 2020: Issues, Elections and Beyond

Book excerpt: Critical Storytelling in 2020: Issues, Elections, and Beyond embraces the fierce urgency of the year 2020. This collection features timely research, critical stories, and engaging poetry written by undergraduate students, Master’s and Ph.D. students, recently-graduated students, and faculty. The authors hail from fields of Communication Studies, Education, Journalism, Media Arts & Studies, Creative Writing, Criminal Justice, Law, and Business/Organizational Communication. For those that share personal narratives and poems, we are drawn to witness how the personal is often political and the individual is often collective. For those that share more social-scientific papers (literature reviews, some with narrative sections), we are drawn to witness how the political is often personal and the collective is often individual. The year 2020 clearly is a year that highlights our complex reality of politics, personal and collective issues, and futures influenced by the present. This volume, in both direct and deviant ways, speaks to issues of pivotal import in the U.S. in a year that will see a crucial census, a historic election, and the momentous, yet-to-be-seen movement birthed from contested change and courageous critical storytellers. The authors herein dare to share their voices in written form and bravely offer their perspectives to us—their stories ring out beyond the written page. Contributors are: Bowen Dong, Aurora Gross, Nicholas D. Hartlep, Brandon O. Hensley, Phelan Johnson, Miles Kinsman, Karen Chava Knox, Sarah Kominek, Emmitt Lewis, Sarita McKenney, Kelsey Mesmer, Taylor Nondorf, Julie M. Novak, Christopher Saleh, Daniel Socha, Ashley Teffer, and Kimberly Tracey.