How do stories grip people’s imaginations and shape their lives? How do stories link tellers and listeners, claim status, encode values, sacralize the status quo, and also inspire change by providing imaginative alternatives? How are stories transformed through expression in different media, at different historical moments, and the goals of scholars? This two week intensive course explores oral traditions in South Asia. Studying the social life of stories, the course provides ways to think about region, gender, religion, caste, kinship, social movements, the impact of mass media, and cultural continuities in diaspora. The course also offers methods for identifying, recording, transcribing, writing up and interpreting such genres as folktales, legends, myths, epics, oral histories, family stories, and life histories. While readings will draw largely on South Asian materials, the research project may apply these insights and methods to narratives from elsewhere in Asia or the Pacific.