“What If…?” — When Stories Gave Back More Than Expected
(GHIS Seminars at Utrecht University, February - March 2025)
​
In a conversation with Gillina Bezemer (coordinator of Utrecht University’s Honours Programme - GHIS) I shared a presentation on the impact of storytelling on identity and memory. Would these themes be something for a seminar series for GHIS this year? Since 'democracy' was one of the main objectives this year, we quickly came to the question ‘Can we extend the themes - storytelling, identity, and memory - into the broader and more urgent realm of democracy?’
From that followed the challenging question: ‘What if we could explore democracy through the lens of personal stories?’ Not as an abstract ideal, but as a lived experience - embedded in identity, memory, and the narratives we carry.
In a world increasingly shaped by simplified narratives and ideological noise, would we be able to teach the next generation of thinkers and leaders to slow down, reflect, and ask: ‘What’s the story here? Whose story is this? And what if there’s another way to tell it?’
It resulted in the development of a three-part seminar, offered entirely online, which invited students into an unconventional journey: part lecture, part self-reflection, part storytelling lab.
This is what we offered the students in the seminar info sheet:
"How do we perceive ourselves and how are we perceived by others?
What are life narratives, and can we trust them?
What are ‘single’ stories and how can they lead to dominant narratives and discourses?
What role do personal and collective memories play in this? How reliable are they?
How can we question questionable stories?
This seminar series raises awareness for the realm of personal and group identities. Based on true stories, and by means of interactive online sessions, you’ll get introduced to concepts of identity narratives within communities and society. The first story of “Sean of Islay, Scotland” will be told by the lecturer during the seminar evenings. By home readings and/or podcast listening you’ll learn about the second story of Jur Deitmers, a 21 year old Harvard student who lost his memories due to encephalitis. The final stories will be brought in by you.
Based on homework preparations you’ll build towards sharing a glimpse of your own narrative or a critical evaluation of a personal and collective worldview.
During the seminars you’ll evaluate and practice how storytelling techniques can facilitate critical thinking in the context of self-agency and in context of more broad (collective) worldviews (e.g. insights in the (political) context of (democratic) societies).
The seminar lectures will cover:
An introduction to storytelling in the context of identity
(Storied) memories, story eliciting questions and how to question stories
Storytelling in the context of worldviews / narrative threats to democracy and transformative (counter) stories"
The result: a fully booked online seminar series that brought together a culturally diverse group of Master students from across disciplines - Humanities, Law, Medicine, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Geosciences, and Economics & Governance - into one reflective and creative space.
Their final project assignment, based on a simple but challenging prompt (“What if…?”), astonished us. But before we get there, let’s look at what they were responding to.
A Narrative Journey
The seminar series was originally born from a true story - my personal research and investigation into the life of Sean O’Leary - an enigmatic man who created a new identity and life on a remote Scottish island. His story became an allegory for questions we all carry: Who are we? What stories do we tell about ourselves? What happens when memory, identity, and belonging are fluid - or fictional?
From that foundation, we designed three sessions blending theory and lived narrative.
Each session combined prompted interactive breakout activities to stimulate mutual storytelling and reflection, short readings, personal prompts, and creative assignments.
Before coming to the first session the students were given a (pre)assignment: ‘Before the start of session 1 you’ll have asked 1 or 2 other persons (e.g. friend, family, colleague, student peer) to tell a short story about you that describes something typical of you or certain recurring events/patterns.’
The stories would be taken into a break-out room group conversation with fellow students. The insights would be shared plenary.
For the first two seminars we chose two true stories as a narrative framework.
Session 'Identity'
The story of Sean O’Leary focused on identity and the way we construct (and reconstruct) ourselves. Sean O’Leary was an ‘Irish’ painter who arrived on the island of Islay in the 1960s and never left. He built a new identity out of fragments, charm, art, and contradiction. His past and origin were largely invented, his name was not real, and yet, he was embraced by the community, he even made it to ‘local hero’. His story is as much about hiding (the past) as it is about becoming. The homework assignment was: ‘Draw a Tree of Life (past-present-future)’ and bring it to the next session.
Session 'Memory' (initially referring to Sean O’Leary)
This session explored memory - personal and collective - and how it shapes or distorts our sense of self and history. Jur Deitmers, by contrast to Sean, was a Dutch Harvard student who lost his memory after a traumatic event (encephalitis) and had to reconstruct not only his life but also his sense of self. His story forced us to think about memory not just as content, but as a compass for identity.
Through these stories, students explored:
The fluidity of personal identity
The selectivity and manipulability of memory
The power of narrative to connect or divide
And the role of community in accepting or rejecting change
They also learned that stories have intentions: to entertain, explain, manipulate, seduce, inspire, control, and more.
The homework assignment was: ‘Read a synopsis of Jur Deitmers’ book and watch his TED talk on his experiences following his memory loss. Prepare a short presentation in which you’ll connect the stories of Sean and Jur with each other, and with your own viewpoint.’
Session 'Narratives in Democracy: Between Control and Freedom'
After the students had shared insights on similarities and differences of Sean’s, Jur’s and their own experiences, we shifted to societal narratives. We examined how “single stories” (inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s famous TED Talk) can reduce people to roles - victim, refugee, criminal, elite - and how these stories often become dominant (societal) discourses that shape institutions, policies and opinions, and feed prejudice, stigmatisation, exclusion and inequality.
We therefore included:
The use of metaphors in identity politics (“rats”, “vases”, “heroes”)
The process of “othering” and exclusion
How polarisation feeds on identity
And how autocratic movements exploit these mechanisms
But rather than ending with a mere warning, we ended with a challenge:
Can we imagine transformative counter-narratives that open instead of close, that connect instead of divide? Which might reclaim agency, diversity and inclusivity?
The final assignment asked each student to create a transformative story including “What if…” (including a moment of decisive change).
“What If…?” - Stories That Gave Back, and where to find them
The result was deeply moving. These were not abstract ideas, but grounded, very personal, emotionally resonant explorations of power, identity, and hope.
Across the submissions, we saw:
Intergenerational healing, often through memory (e.g., a grandmother’s interview on a Sicilian beach).
Political reinvention, imagined through inclusive acts (e.g., a “Mixed School Act” in Canada)
Personal confessions, turning privilege into responsibility (e.g., contrasting protests in Turkey with comfort in the Netherlands)
Speculative futures, rooted in empathy rather than dystopia
Despite the diversity of topics, a few clear themes emerged:
A longing for belonging without borders
A reclaiming of silenced voices
A belief in the narrative imagination as a civic tool
These stories were not naïve. They acknowledged fear, trauma, and loss. But they also offered paths forward. They were, in every sense, counter-narratives.
Voices
Finally, a few student voices, which maybe illustrate their motivation to work seriously on their transformative stories:
“Your seminars truly inspired me and allowed us to have open dialogues on the stories that have formed our perceptions of the past—and our expectations of the future.”
(Student, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences)
“Even though it was online, it allowed students like me—doing an internship remotely—to still take part in it and learn from you. I really appreciated that and it taught me the power of stories.”
(Student, Faculty of Humanities)
“I want to thank you again for your seminars on storytelling. They gave me a new lens through which to understand history, identity, and responsibility.”
(Student, Faculty of Law)
You're welcome to read the stories in their entirety. They are anonymized for privacy reasons.