Telling stories from the Shannon Seminar on Storytelling
Remotely nestled within Connemara in the west of Ireland lies Kylemore Abbey, a place with its own storied history. For the purposes of this story, it becomes the setting of a unique, insightful, and productive academic experiment.
In conjunction with the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies hosted the Shannon Seminar on Storytelling, an academic working group that invited a variety of scholars to contribute papers reflecting on the theme of “storytelling on the margins,” examining how voices from diverse perspectives considered “marginal” in society might share their stories, for a forthcoming edited volume. The working group met throughout the 2025 spring semester to present and give feedback on each other’s works in progress. In the following summer, the seminar culminated in a writing workshop at Kylemore Abbey, where participants discussed and gave feedback on completed first drafts. Situated in Ireland’s rural west, the group explored storytelling in myriad and diverse forms quite literally from the margins of Europe.
I was fortunate enough to be one of the graduate students invited to participate in the seminar, and it was one of the most unique and career-building experiences I have had. I am currently a second-year master’s student in the English department. At the time of the seminar, I had just finished my first year of graduate school, making me the most junior scholar in the group, which, at first, was rather intimidating. The setting of the seminar, however, quickly lent itself to assuaging those insecurities.
The seminar was centered around a series of feedback sessions in which each scholar had the chance to briefly present their paper and receive feedback from other writers to generate ideas for future drafts. The session where I presented my paper, which explored the feminist fantasy writings of Irish author Deirdre Sullivan, was amazingly generative, and now, I feel like I have enough ideas about different directions I could take to fill a book. My session also made me feel like I was treated as a peer to the other participants of the seminar, most of whom were tenure-track or tenured professors or professional practitioners of the arts (more on that later). Likewise, in the feedback sessions where I was contributing ideas to other writers, my contributions were taken seriously as generative points of discussion.
I call the seminar experimental because of the unusual format it followed. While not marginal by any means in the sense of the organizations sponsoring it or the caliber of scholarship, it could be considered on the margins of the academy for how it brought together scholars in a “formally informal” setting to create a publication in process which is being shaped by the distinctive methods through which the final product is coming together. In my experience, discussions of papers or works in progress take place either in the classroom, typically in a graduate seminar, or at formal conferences. The former is a learning experience for students in which there is an inherent hierarchy. The professor runs the classroom as the expert on the topic being discussed to impart knowledge and guide discussion. The latter sees a presenter giving an extended, formal presentation as the expert of their finished paper to an audience of other experts who will then ask questions in an organized question-and-answer session.
"[This seminar] was a truly interdisciplinary and productive creation of new knowledge."
The Shannon Seminar was neither of these things. It had a collegial setting reminiscent of a classroom in the sense that papers were under discussion as works in progress instead of being the objects of extended presentations; however, there was no inherent hierarchy drawn from expertise and experience like that of a professor and student. Instead, the goal of the feedback sessions was exploration and possibility, and everyone contributed to stimulating and generative discussions that opened new avenues of inquiry for each paper.
These discussions extended beyond the sessions themselves to excursions and meals where more informal, yet still fruitful conversations took place. As an early-stage graduate student, I had the unique opportunity to spend a week receiving mentoring from a diverse array of scholars who both helped me improve my own paper and gave great advice for pursuing a career in academia. At the same time, I was treated as a peer within the group who actively contributed to shaping everyone’s scholarship through participation in both formal and informal colloquia.
The interdisciplinary range of the scholarship in this seminar also extended to the practice of art. Instead of writing an article, Olivier Morel, associate professor of film studies, screened the work-in-progress version of a short documentary that he is planning on completing in the near future. Tara Zahra, Hanna Holborn Gray Professor of East European History and the College at the University of Chicago, is working with Meredith Dincolo, professional dancer, teacher, and choreographer, on an article about contemporary dance in 1990s Europe. They gave a practicum on the foundations of dance and movement studies.
We also had authors Ananda Devi, who wrote a short story for the event, and Katriona O’Sullivan, professor of psychology at Maynooth University, give talks about their most recent books and their writing processes. As a literary scholar, listening to Devi and O’Sullivan’s talks and then having the chance to discuss their work with them over the course of the seminar was a particular highlight for me. On a more general note, having these practitioners contribute to the seminar and the creation of new knowledge for the edited volume pushes the bounds of traditional academia by combining art and scholarship to explore different modes of storytelling.
The people, the place, and the unusual format made the Shannon Seminar unlike anything else I have experienced in academia, and I believe it was a truly interdisciplinary and productive creation of new knowledge. It allowed for the exploration of ideas many of us might not otherwise have had a forum to work with so deeply. Looking ahead, I know my scholarship and article have been reshaped for the better, and I cannot wait to see what type of volume this successful experiment will yield.
Originally published by at nanovic.nd.edu on October 09, 2025.