“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds; what worlds make stories.”

Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble. 

Stories are a means of understanding the world we inhabit. They are crucial to our efforts to see the world, they shape how we organize, interpret, and refabricate information into reality. Humans possess an innate capacity to craft narratives, with cave paintings on walls followed by oral storytelling, folk tales, myths, and epics being some of the earliest evidence of stories shaping reality. Over millennia, storytelling has evolved into a process that aids our thinking and comprehension of the world. In other words, it serves as both a knowledge system and a thinking system, extending beyond mere knowledge creation and application to include future problem-solving and resilience-building. We now live in an era saturated with stories in all forms, from folk legends and oral traditions to digital news and casual conversations. The breadth and variety of what constitutes a narrative is both amorphous and amazing. Stories are shared in numerous ways across diverse languages in varied contexts at different times and in myriad places.

In 2006, sociologist and political scientist Francesca Polletta remarked, “In recent years, storytelling has been promoted in various places.” She referred to what Christian Salmon and others have termed “the narrative turn,” a cultural swing to deploying stories as apparatuses for fashioning and disseminating meaning. The explosion of narratives in the 21st century coincides with the rise of new media. This constantly evolving digital landscape has transformed how narratives are disseminated and has enabled the emergence of various new forms of storytelling. However, the orientation of narratives is rarely ever neutral; the narratives themselves exist within structures of knowledge and power. Some narratives become dominant while others are marginalized, reinforcing or challenging oppression and hegemony. Edward Said, in Culture and Imperialism, highlighted how the creation, circulation, and reception of narratives are fundamentally influenced by the power structures in which they arise. The recent use and abuse of storytelling makes the consideration of the power dynamics urgent, dangerous, and effective. By the end of the twentieth century, the relationship between ethics, human values, and narratives was no longer unquestioned owing to questions raised by postcolonial, feminist, and deconstructive studies. Narrative practices could either reinforce stereotypes or challenge them through dialogic understanding. Ethical storytelling reveals the subject in action and becoming, rather than in fixed, abstract terms. This approach is crucial in resisting divisive narratives and fostering inclusivity.

The discussions of Humanist advocates like Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty are inspired by Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas, who see narrative as a tool for fostering empathy. Theorists like Derek Attridge, Robert Eaglestone, and J. Hillis Miller, examine narrative as a site for encountering otherness and facilitating ethical engagement rather than merely providing moral instruction. Deliberations on affect and empathy often intersect with ethical considerations. The French philosopher and anthropologists Bruno Latour, and theorists like Alfred Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and Michel Serres, view scientific facts as emerging from an elaborate method of production, construction, and fabrication, akin to stories. For feminist theorists like Luce Irigaray and Donna Haraway, motivations emerging from gender or species differences contribute to this production, urging us to dismantle the Positivists reliance of data experience , impartiality, objectivity, and universality.

The word Aesthetics is derived from the Greek "aisthesis," denoting "sensation" or "perception,” this is vitally interwoven with how narratives and stories are perceived. Friedrich Schiller posited, “Art is the daughter of freedom,” emphasizing that the aesthetic quality of a narrative significantly shapes its impact. Immanuel Kant noted that the aesthetic experience involves the “disinterested” pleasure we derive from art. In his Critique of Judgment, Kant argues that beauty in art and nature speaks directly to our senses, suggesting that the beauty of a story can resonate on a deeper, more intuitive level.

Narratives are more than mere chronicles of events; they are fundamental to human experience and understanding. Hannah Arendt eloquently states how “It is true that storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.” Through narratives, we make sense of our world, our histories, and ourselves, providing a framework to organize and interpret reality. Roland Barthes, in S/Z, emphasized the reader's role in creating meaning within a narrative. He stated, “The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author,” highlighting that the aesthetic experience of a story is co-created by its audience, who bring their own interpretations and emotions to it. The aesthetics of storytelling also carry ethical implications. Martha Nussbaum, in Poetic Justice, argues that literature and narratives cultivate empathy and moral imagination, hence fostering a deeper sense of connection and responsibility toward others. Walter Benjamin, in The Storyteller, lamented the decline of storytelling in the modern age, believing that the aesthetic richness of traditional storytelling was being lost. He wrote, “Experience has fallen in value,” evidently emphasizing the need for aesthetic and narrative depth to convey the full richness of human experience.

The Italian philosopher Adriana Cavarero suggests that narratives help us explore and understand our identities, both individually and as a community. They evoke empathy and engage audiences on emotional levels beyond mere cognition. According to Arendt, we express our “unique distinctness” and “insert ourselves into the human world” through speech and action. She uses the notion of natality to describe how each birth brings a new person with the power to begin a “new process which eventually emerges as the unique life story of the newcomer, affecting uniquely the life stories of all those with whom he comes into contact.” Stories help us make sense of where we come from and where we are going; they provide us with “imaginative variations” of the self that allow us to explore who we are and who we could be.

In her talk titled “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Adichie emphasizes the importance of stories, cautioning against relying on a single narrative about a person, situation, or conflict. Adichie argues that single stories can have a significant negative impact. Creating space for several stories empowers and humanizes us. Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas of privileging a polyphony of diverse voices and perspectives advocate for participative listening and responsiveness towards the other’s singularity. At the level of community, narratives weave diverse folk, oral, and storytelling cultures, highlighting the organic relationship between humans, non-humans, and the narratives themselves, hence emphasizing the need for narrativity in language, culture, and all mediums of art.

The major traditions of Indian thought and literature can be traced to identify general perspectives in philosophical ethics. From ancient Sanskrit texts to classical epics, myths, legends, and folktales like Panchatantra and Jataka tales, it is established that these stories enchant listeners with timeless wisdom and moral lessons. They entertain and educate, imparting values and life lessons relevant to various aspects of human existence. In the Buddhist practice, texts encompass the various Jataka stories, Abhidharma texts, and monastic discipline texts (Vinaya). The Jain tradition has a bulk of literature replicating Hindu epics, comparable to the Buddhist tradition. In each tradition, protagonists like Rama, Sita, or Krishna are introduced in different plots with definite moral lessons concurring with the allied moral concept.

In the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, and Epics, the concept of dharma pervades, encompassing principles of law, order, harmony, truth and ideas such as duty, rights, character, religion, customs, and all behaviour is considered appropriate, or morally correct. Patanjali clarified dharma in the Yoga Sutras as part of yoga—yamas (restraint), and niyamas (observance). It is explained as a law of virtuousness and linked to satya (truth) in hymn 1.4.14 of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:

 धर्मः तस्माद्धर्मात् परं नास्त्य् अथो अबलीयान् बलीयाँसमाशँसते धर्मेण यथा राज्ञैवम्। यो वै स धर्मः 

सत्यं वै तत् तस्मात्सत्यं वदन्तमाहुर् धर्मंवदतीति धर्मं वा वदन्तँ सत्यं वदतीत्य् एतद्ध्येवैतदुभयं भवति ॥

[Nothing is higher than dharma. The weak overcomes the stronger by dharma, as over a king. Truly that dharma is the Truth (Satya); Therefore, when a man speaks the Truth, they say, "He speaks the Dharma"; and if he speaks Dharma, they say, "He speaks the Truth!" For both are one].

This conference aims to bring together different aspects of the twenty-first-century deliberations on narratives, aesthetics, and human values to recommence the debate on the ethics of narratives in light of contemporary upheavals. Given the ecological, digital, economic, demographic, and geopolitical vagaries, questions about stories and the human values they embody may seem peripheral, yet they are more urgent than ever. Founded on Theodore Adorno’s contention that art's “powerlessness and superfluity make it paradoxically, a powerful position of ethical and political questioning”, this conference will  dwell on the crossways of stories and human values in the living present, the disputed  pasts and indefinite futures. Stories generate new stories and are recycled from one generation to the next in different variations. While literature may not literally save the world, it can most definitely raise awareness and contribute towards expanding the sphere of the “we” that needs salvation. It can sensitize us to the open-mindedness of narratives and our fundamental dependency on one another’s stories, highlighting our condition as inter-narrative beings. When it comes to realizing the ethical potential of storytelling, however, there are no guarantees. In 1987, J. Hillis Miller published The Ethics of Reading, where he raises  the issue: “In what sense can or should the act of reading be itself ethical or have an ethical import?” By addressing Miller’s inquiry, this conference will endeavour to grasp the ethical responsibilities we—as academics, intellectuals, and individuals—owe to literature and the creative arts.

We invite 15-minute presentations on topics including but not restricted to, the following topics:

• The Art and Practice of Storytelling
• Folklore, Mythology, and Traditional Narratives
• Narrative and Identity
• Narrative and Society
• Narrative, Memory, and Time
• Narrative and Ethics
• Narrative Theory and Philosophy
• Cultural Narratives and Identity
• Narratives in Media and Technology
• Aesthetics and Narrative Form
• Historical Narratives and Memory
• Psychological and Cognitive Aspects of Narratives
• Education and Narrative Pedagogy
• Narratives in Science and Medicine
• Global Narratives and Comparative Studies
• Gender and Narrative
• Children's Storytelling 
• Narrative and Environment
• Narrative and Digital Culture
• Narrative and Law
• Narrative and Health Communication
• Narrative and Artificial Intelligence
• Cross-Cultural Narratives
• Narrative in Popular Culture
• Food and Narrative
• Narrative and Trauma
• Narrative and Spirituality
• Narrative and Migration
• Interactive and Participatory Narratives
• Religious Storytelling
• Mahabharata and Ramayana 
• Katha traditions, Kissa, Patachitra, Pravachan, Patakam, Upanyasam, Harikatha, Kalakshepa, Harikeerthan and Villupattu 
• Kathasaritsagar, Jataka tales, Panchtantra , Dastangoi
• Future of Narratives