Despite the amount of storytelling in social movements, little attention has been paid to narrative as a form of movement discourse or as a mode of social interaction. Stories of Change is a systematic study of narrative as well as a demonstration of the power of narrative analysis to illuminate many features of contemporary social movements. Davis includes a wide array of stories of change—stories of having been harmed or wronged, stories of conflict with unjust authorities, stories of liberation and empowerment, and stories of strategic success and failure. By showing how these stories are a powerful vehicle for producing, regulating, and diffusing shared meaning, the contributors explore movement stories, their functions, and the conditions under which they are created and performed. They show how narrative study can illuminate social movement emergence, recruitment, internal dynamics, and identity building.

Eleven-year-old Tilly saved lives in Thailand by warning people that a tsunami was coming. Fifteen-year-old Malika fought against segregation in her Alabama town. Ten-year-old Jean-Dominic won a battle against pesticides—and the cancer they caused in his body. Six-year-old Ryan raised $800,000 to drill water wells in Africa. And twelve-year-old Haruka invented a new environmentally friendly way to scoop dog poop. With the right role models, any child can be a hero. Thirty true stories profile kids who used their heads, their hearts, their courage, and sometimes their stubbornness to help others and do extraordinary things. As young readers meet these boys and girls from around the world, they may wonder, “What kind of hero lives inside of me?”

In Changing Stories: Postmodernism and the Arab-Islamic World some recent ideas current in postmodernist theoretical discourse are critically investigated and pragmatically applied to concrete issues relating to the contemporary Arab-Islamic world. In particular Jean-François Lyotard's distinction between grand narratives (or master stories) and small stories (or local narratives) is taken by the authors as a starting-point and point of reference and in various ways they address the legitimacy and applicability of this distinction. After a general introduction nine separate articles deal with the predicament of Palestinian women in the occupied territories, Dutch development-aid discourse in Gaza and the West Bank, Islamism and modernism in Tunisia, modernist and postmodernist political discourse in Egypt, feminism in Egypt and, as a travelling theory, in the Arab world as a whole, juridical and educational attitudes towards Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands, and the concept of the Islamic city. The volume should therefore be of interest not only to those concerned with Middle Eastern studies but also to anyone wanting to keep abreast of the latest currents in critical and theoretical discourse.

Change Your Story, Change Your Life is a practical self-help guide to personal transformation using traditional shamanic techniques combined with journaling and Carl Greer’s method for dialoguing that draws upon Jungian active imagination. The exercises inspire readers to work with insights and energies derived during the use of modalities that tap into the unconscious so that they may consciously choose the changes they would like to make in their lives and begin implementing them.

Our world is facing an enormous and unprecedented challenge. The migration crisis affects nearly eighty million people and represents a humanitarian catastrophe. How can we ignore the suffering of men, women, and children who are forcibly displaced worldwide? The book, Changing Stories, helps the reader to reflect on the migration crisis from a biblical perspective. It evaluates refugee ministry ongoing initiatives among the world’s most vulnerable people. Additionally, it analyzes the refugee ministry that the Arsenal Hill Presbyterian Church is developing with refugees from Syria, Iraq, the Congo, and Vietnam. The analysis uses as a framework the Best Practices for Christian Ministry among Forcibly Displaced People document proposed by the Refugee Highway Partnership (RHP). Throughout the book, the author answers the following questions: •How complex is the current migration crisis? •What does the Scripture say about displaced people? •What are some of the available tools for a refugee ministry? •How does a refugee ministry look in a local church? •What are some of the best practices for a refugee ministry? The book tells many stories of refugees from different backgrounds, which will help you hear voices representing hundreds of thousands of refugees who go unheard.

Countless stories. One incredible ending. A major league baseball player. a Tennessee pastor. A reality TV star. a single mom. A multi-platinum rocker. What do these people have in common? They’ve all hit bottom. And none of them stayed there. Famous or unfamiliar, these are the stories of real people who reached the end of their strength, the end of their control, and found the most surprising truths. It taught them not to rely on self or substance but to lean on the only completely reliable source of love, hope, and freedom: the God who created them. Shocking in their honesty, inspiring in their courage, these testimonies are critical reminders that no one is too far from God to find him. Join these and thousands more who have discovered the lifechanging power in putting God first and proclaiming, “I am Second.”

For every woman who has ever been called outdoorsy comes a collection of stories that inspires unforgettable adventure. Beautiful, empowering, and exhilarating, She Explores is a spirited celebration of female bravery and courage, and an inspirational companion for any woman who wants to travel the world on her own terms. Combining breathtaking travel photography with compelling personal narratives, She Explores shares the stories of 40 diverse women on unforgettable journeys in nature: women who live out of vans, trucks, and vintage trailers, hiking the wild, cooking meals over campfires, and sleeping under the stars. Women biking through the countryside, embarking on an unknown road trip, or backpacking through the outdoors with their young children in tow. Complementing the narratives are practical tips and advice for women planning their own trips, including: • Preparing for a solo hike • Must-haves for a road-trip kitchen • Planning ahead for unknown territory • Telling your own story A visually stunning and emotionally satisfying collection for any woman craving new landscapes and adventure.

Telling Stories to Change the World is a powerful collection of essays about community-based and interest-based projects where storytelling is used as a strategy for speaking out for justice. Contributors from locations across the globe—including Uganda, Darfur, China, Afghanistan, South Africa, New Orleans, and Chicago—describe grassroots projects in which communities use narrative as a way of exploring what a more just society might look like and what civic engagement means. These compelling accounts of resistance, hope, and vision showcase the power of the storytelling form to generate critique and collective action. Together, these projects demonstrate the contemporary power of stories to stimulate engagement, active citizenship, the pride of identity, and the humility of human connectedness.

If you ask someone the question, "Tell me a story that changed your life," there will almost certainly be a thoughtful pause before a huge grin emerges. Everyone's life has been guided and impacted by stories, beginning with the earliest fables and nursery rhymes our parents used to instill moral values to the last time you wanted to illustrate a point in a meeting or get a laugh out of a friend over dinner. Storytelling is a uniquely human activity, among our first and most enduring forms of communication. This is a book about the meaning of stories in people's lives, especially those that have produced enduring changes in their values, behavior, lifestyle, and worldview. Carefully documented and supported by research from the social sciences, as well as from neurobiology, the humanities, media studies, and arts, Jeffrey Kottler will explore how and why stories are so powerfully influential in people's lives, especially those that lead to major life transformations.

This is an imaginative evocation and analysis—through the medium of translations (the author’s own) of once popular but now forgotten literature—of the variety of “stories” in terms of which the Chinese have interpreted their lives since the early years of the 19th century.