Rise Up! Reconnect. Rebuild. Recreate

10th International Digital Storytelling Conference

Monday the 20th of June – Wednesday the 22nd of June 2022 
Loughborough University, UK

Call For Papers and Presentation Proposals

We invite you to join us at Loughborough University, UK, in the coming Summer for an amazing gathering of digital storytelling professionals, academics, museum educators, students, community partners, and activists. 

Our conference is part of a multi-institutional, multinational, three-year process and programme, started last year with our successful 24hour online marathon – organised by Loughborough University (UK), StoryCenter (US) UMBC – University of Maryland Baltimore County (US), Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology (US), Montgomery College (US), Patient Voices (UK) – that includes a face-to-face event in Loughborough in June 2022 and a series of follow-on activities in the Washington, D.C. area and in Maryland, USA, in 2023.

Our conference will host various events (both in person and online) in its structure for inclusion of diverse perspectives and voices. In addition to academic papers, workshops, and roundtable discussions, we encourage practitioners from community settings, artists and students to contribute and express their creativity through various formats (short performances, artworks, video/audio submissions, etc.).

Within the umbrella theme of Story Work for a Just Future ,explored across our three-year programme of events, and in response to the current pandemic, for DST 2022 Rise Up! we are particularly interested in proposals with a focus on how our Story Work could help us and our communities Reconnect, Rebuild, Recreate.

To frame your ideas you could also consider (but not limited to) the following Re-words and use them as lenses through which look at context, content or practice:

• Revive
• Restore
• Recover
• Rewrite

All interested conference contributors are invited to share their work through six types of contributions, but we also welcome other formats.

Conference Formats: 

• Academic paper (15 minutes)
• Workshop (45 minutes)
• Roundtable discussion (45 minutes)
• Short performance (to be defined on a one-to-one basis) 
• Artwork (to be defined on a one-to-one basis) 
• Video/Audio submission  
• Other: If you think you don’t  fit into one of these formats, please email us with your idea! 

Submission guidelines & key dates:

• 250-word abstract to describe your proposal (please, specify which format)
• Include a title, your name, email address, and affiliation if applicable
• Submit your proposal via email to Saedstorytelling@lboro.ac.uk 
• Deadline for abstract submission: 27th February 2022
• Notification of acceptance: 31st March 2022
• Early bird registration opens: 15th March 2022
• General Registration opens: 30th April 2022 
• Registration closes: 30th May 2022
• Conference presentations, videos, materials to be sent in advance by 5th June 2022. Special arrangements will be made on a one-to-one basis for other formats.
• Early bird: £180 (£80 student and practitioner rate) 
• Regular registration: £220 (£100 student and practitioner rate; £60 day rate)
• Digital participation: It is our intention to make digital participation possible. Please write to Sally Bellman for more information. 

Included in the Registration fee are coffee and tea breaks, lunch, access to all conference sessions, social activity (true-life storytelling club) during the opening evening, publication of the abstract in online conference proceedings.
Additional and optional social activity will be booked separately by each participant.

For further submission requirements and information on accommodation, please write to the Storytelling Research Team at Loughborough University: Saedstorytelling@lboro.ac.uk 

Conference Chairs: Antonia Liguori and Michael Wilson (Loughborough University, UK)

Conference Committee Members: Lyndsey Bakewell (DeMontfort University, UK), Jessica Berman (University of Maryland, Baltimore County UMBC, US), Bev Bickel (UMBC, US), Matthew Decker (Montgomery College, US), Patrick Desloge (Hong Kong University), Lindsay DiCiurci (UMBC, US), Sara Bachman Ducey (Montgomery College, US), Mark Dunford (University of Westminsters/DigiTales, UK), Daniela Gachago (Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa), Jamie Gillan (Montgomery College, US), Pip Hardy (Patient Voices, UK), Grete Jamissen (OsloMet, Norway), Tricia Jenkins (DigiTales, UK), Charlotte Keniston (UMBC, US), Joe Lambert (StoryCenter, US), Michalis Meimaris (University of Athens, Greece), Daniel Onyango (HopeRaisers, Kenya), Ngozi Oparah (Loughborough University, UK / StoryCenter, US), Philippa Rappoport (Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology, US), Bill Shewbridge (UMBC, US), Burcu Simsek (Hacettepe University, Turkey), Tony Sumner (Patient Voices, UK), Pam Sykes (University of the Western Cape, South Africa), Chris Thomson (Jisc, UK).

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Story Work for a Just Future
Exploring Diverse Experiences and Methods within an International Community of Practice 

Storytelling has been defined as ‘the artform of social interaction’ (Wilson, 1998), not only for its inner dynamics, but also for its power to unlock grass-roots knowledge, explore dilemmas, develop community resilience, engender change.

Stories can generate empathy and trust in the audience and at the same time demonstrate their usefulness because they have the power to give meaning to human behaviors and to trigger emotions (Bourbonnais and Michaud, 2018). ‘This happens because stories are perceived as vectors of truth. They also challenge the meaning of truth itself and suggest a deeper reflection on how various perspectives embedded in personal narratives about contested themes and events can generate multiple truths’ (Liguori, 2020).

Yet we acknowledge the existence of multiple truths when we recognise, as the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie observes, ‘the danger of a single story’ (2009). As she describes, ‘because our lives and our cultures are composed of a series of overlapping stories, if we hear only a single story about another person, culture, or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding’. In a time of worrying ‘critical misunderstandings’ worldwide, we want to explore with you the value of Applied Storytelling as a tool to co/re-develop ‘A Just Future’.

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Conference website: dst2022.org

The main contact for the DST Conference 2022 in Loughborough is Antonia Liguori.