Power of Stories, Empire of Things

Power of Stories, Empire of Things

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

  • Jul 8, 2016 9:00 pm
  • 1:43:18 mins

The Power of Stories Guests: Jill Rudy, PhD, Folklorist, Professor of English at BYU; Jeff Parkin, Filmmaker, Professor of Film at BYU; Philip McArthur, PhD, Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the College of Arts and Humanitiesat BYU-Hawaii What is it about some tales that enthrall us so deeply we’ll sit in the driveway just to hear the end of it on the car radio, or stay glued to our seats until the film credits are over and the lights come up because we’re so moved? Why do some stories do that to us, and others just make us shrug? We’ve assembled a panel of experts to dissect what makes a good story great. We’ll also look at the power of stories – because how we tell them and the ways they affect us get at the essence of who we are as people and cultures.  Empire of Things Guest: Frank Trentmann, Professor of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of London, Author of “Empire of Things” In developed countries, each person uses around 150,000 pounds of material per year: that’s food, clothes, gadgets, and all the resources that were employed to make all that stuff. We are a world of consumers with a seemingly endless appetite for things. But the things we fill our homes and lives with serve purposes beyond what they were manufactured to do. This hour we’re going to look back in time and forward to future as we consider how we came to have so much stuff, what that stuff really means to us, and whether our appetites for material goods will ever be satisfied.