The stories we tell ourselves are central to how we engage with the world around us. Stories help us make sense of the world, tell us who we are and why we’re here, and define our purpose for existence. Stories empower us to learn from the experiences, successes, and failures of others, and can guide us as we make difficult choices in our own lives. They can entertain us; instruct us; and, above all, connect us—to the world, to people in other times and places, to each other, and to our innermost selves. Stories remind us of the remarkable constancy in human nature and the human experience, while simultaneously helping us to learn and grow.

We are perpetually interested in questions related to the human condition: What does it mean to be human? Why are we here? What is the best way to live? These stories comprise “The Great Conversation”—the iterative dialogue between thoughtful people across time and place about questions of origin, purpose, and destiny. Studying stories from The Great Conversation across media, across history, and across culture allows us insight into how people have answered these questions for themselves. Doing so helps us become better able to understand who we are and how we can live life richly and, well, in the here and now.

To examine the connection between the storytelling impulse and our implicit desire to understand our lives and our place in the world, you will go on a globe-spanning, time-travelling, media-traversing tour in the 12 lectures of Storytelling and the Human Condition. Your guide is award-winning journalist, author, and storyteller Alexandra Hudson, founder of Civic Renaissance, a community of lifelong learners, which she invites you to join at Civic-Renaissance.com. In this course, she will illuminate the many ways stories shape our lives throughout history and across cultures.