History

The International Conference on Narrative is an annual event sponsored by the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature at a different site each year. The first conference was sponsored by Ohio State University in 1986; 1997 will see the twelfth. Over the years, our plenary speakers have been people who speak to issues of narrative from a variety of positions and perspectives.

Past speakers include, for example, Wayne Booth, Arthur Danto, D.A. Miller, Nancy K. Miller, Terry Eagleton, Renato Rosaldo, Teresa de Lauretis, Tania Modleski, Walter Benn Michaels, Eve Sedgwick,Thomas Laqueur, and Gayatri Spivak.

Each year the Plenary Speakers' talks are published in the Society's journal, Narrative, which won the award for Best New Journal form the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.

Since that first conference of about 200 people, attendance has grown steadily: in 1995, in Park City, UT, there were well over 300 participants. Approximately 350 people attended the 1996 conference in Columbus, OH.