Stories of Shared Authorities • Interview by Kevin Heslop • 1

Hamilton Arts & Letters     Kevin Heslop: When finally calibrating some of the questions to follow, sitting in a little stone garden beside the engineering building here on campus at McMaster, I noticed someone had written on the table I was sitting at the word HUMANITIES in block letters and, for the first time, that the letter “I” sits between the words ‘human’ and ‘ties’.             If you don’t mind, I’d like to begin with that image, and with the anecdotal way in which it was offered, and ask you about narrative. I wonder if it might be helpful to think that narrative is to the most obscure humanistic specialization what the primary colours are to tertiary or quaternary colours? If narrative is as central to the humanities as it seems to be, I wonder what role narrative plays, implicitly and explicitly, in the public-humanities programs you have developed. Dr. Lorraine York: Well, they’re at the heart. It’s embedded in our very name. We are the Centre for Community Engaged Narrative Arts. And that came along in an evolutionary kind of way. We’re both Canadian literature specialists by discipline, and we had wondered whether this Centre would somehow be connected to–– Waiter: Hi! Lorraine: Thank you. Waiter: Just droppin’ off some waters here. Can I offer you anything stronger to drink––pop, juice? Dr. Daniel Coleman: We’ll probably do something–– Waiter: Tea?    [  >>>>>  FORWARD ]   + [Distillate © HA&L + Kevin Heslop I Lorraine York I Daniel Coleman I Josh Lambier {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]