Stories come in many forms and serve to both define individual and collective identities. Myths in particular seek to explain our origins and purpose, forming the basis for religious and cultural worldviews. While single stories can promote stereotypes, myths and diverse stories as a whole help shape our shared values and sense of humanity by conveying our interconnectedness throughout history.

1. Answering “How do stories tell us who we are?” By Dario Rainone and Narayan El

2. What are we talking about? What is a story? To whom are we referring? "Us" as each individual or "us" as a collective group of people?

3. We are talking about… A story is a narration of something that may or may not have happened. Different types of stories exist. Individual and collectivity

4. How do we relate to stories through our lives? Our lives are constructed from real events and products of our imagination. Stories do not simply tell us who we are; stories are us. We are naturally vulnerable and ingenuous to their influence.

5. The single story It is a unique version of a story It shows people as one thing, over and over again, until they become that thing. Example: Africans (Chimamanda Adichie)

6. Origins of the single story How does the phenomenon of the single story occur? Stories are dependent on power, the ability to make a story the definitive story. Cultural and economic power to influence and to spread information.

7. Consequences of the single story Stereotypes, assumptions that are not always untrue, but incomplete. It makes the recognition of our equal humanity difficult.

8. What happens when it highlights the positive aspects? It makes recognition of ourunequal humanity difficult. Example: Italians

9. How do single stories tell us who we are? Misinformation perpetuates a single story of the world. Causes hostility and undermines cooperative relations among people.

13. Ritual myth: its purpose is to explain religious and veneration practices. Eschatological: prediction of the catastrophic end of the world.

14. What do myths do? Form the basis for religion. Represent an alternative to science. Represent a collective unconsciousness we are all connected in (Carl Jung).

15. Why would and would we not hold on to myths? Myths provide reasoning where there would otherwise be virtually none. Our fear pushes us to repudiate myths and attempt to explain creation through reason.

16. How do myths tell us who we are? They tell us how and why we are here. They can pre-establish the way we face the future. They symbolize us as one collective unconsciousness. Myths help shape our our values and truths.

17. How do stories tell us who we are? Stories are the foundations of who we are and everything that encompasses our being.