Class Description
You got your results back from 23andMe, mapped out your whole family tree on Ancestry.com, but still feel like something is missing? You’re not alone.
Family and identity are more complex than a genetic test—and richer than a family tree. We share our genes with our children, but it’s just as important to gift them our family’s stories.This 4-session class will help you interweave your experience, perspectives, and data into powerful stories that contextualize ancestral and genealogical facts.
Maybe you want to share how your father lost his business during the Great Depression—only to dust himself off and thrive in a new line of work. These stories are core to who we are, but they rarely get told around the dinner table—and they’re nowhere to be found on Ancestry or 23andMe. With new tools, telling these stories is easier than spitting in a vial—and the results of storytelling are often more meaningful.
Dr. Aaron Greenberg co-founded Biograph, a storytelling technology company. He has served on the Core Faculty of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s Bioethics Clinical Scholars Program and is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Materials List
Required:
- Digital course packet
First Reading:
- Please read the excerpts from Adam Rutherford’s “A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes” and Amy Boesky’s “The Story Within: Personal Essays on Genetics and Identity,” to be included in the course packet and/or distributed by instructor.
Cost and Registration
Four sessions, $215 ($193.50 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.
To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.
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