Learn more about Story+: https://fhi.duke.edu/programs/story

Duke Magazine (https://alumni.duke.edu/magazine) has been around in several iterations since 1917 and has sought to engage alumni in the life of the university through storytelling. President Price’s recent goal of Duke becoming an anti-racist university raises new (and yet perhaps, old) questions: What story has the magazine been telling? Whose story has the magazine been sharing? How has that story changed over time? The aim of this project is to use textual analysis and oral history to examine the magazine through the prism of marketing, journalism, language, and race. In six weeks, the Choose Your Words Carefully team examined the storytelling in Duke Magazine and analyzed how it reflects the university’s perception of the Black community. In the research, this team focuses on three questions: what story has the magazine been telling, whose story has the magazine been telling, and how has the story changed over time.

Story+ is a 6-week summer research experience for Duke undergraduates interested in exploring humanities research approaches (archival research, oral histories, narrative analysis, visual analysis, and more). The program combines research with an emphasis on storytelling for different public audiences. In Story+, students are organized into small project teams and have the opportunity to participate in a flexible mini “curriculum” on research methods and storytelling strategies. Team projects may be led by Duke faculty, Duke librarians, or non-profit organizations, and will be supervised on a day-to-day basis by graduate student mentors.