Molly Andrews is Professor of Sociology, and Co-director of the Centre for Narrative Research. She in interested in the intersection of individual biography and society. For the past twenty years, she has been listening to, and writing about, the stories which people tell about their lives, specifically focussing on their perception of the political world and their role within it. Her research explores the implicit political worldviews which individuals impart through the stories they tell about their lives, as well the wider social and political context which makes some stories more ‘tell-able’ than others. She has conducted research projects in Britain (life histories with lifetime socialists), the United States (analyzing anti-war activism as an expression of patriotism), East Germany (accounting for national identity in the context of the demise of one’s country) and South Africa (examining testimonies before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission).

Shortform CV

Qualifications

• Tufts University, B.A. in Political Science, Magna Cum Laude. June l981.
• Harvard University, Ed.M. in Human Development, Graduate School of Education. May l985.
• University of Cambridge, Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences, June 1989.

Previous posts held

• Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge (Cambridge England), Autumn 2004
• Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire), Visiting Fellow, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, Spring 2004
• Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Assistant Professor of Sociology (tenure-track). 1994 -1996.
• Max-Planck-Institut, (Berlin, Germany) , Associate Research Fellow, Center for Socialization and Human Development. 1993 - 1994.
• Colorado College (Colorado Springs, Colorado), Assistant Professor of Sociology. 1990- 1993.
• Max-Planck-Institut (Berlin, Germany), Visiting Scholar, Center for Socialization and Human Development. 1992.
• University of Cambridge (Cambridge, England) Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Global Security Programme. 1992.
• University of Cambridge (Cambridge, England), Visiting Scholar and Affiliated Lecturer, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. 1989 - 1990

My activities at UeL are focussed on my teaching at both the undergraduate and post-graduate level, my role as Year Two Tutor within the BA Sociology Programme, co-directing the Centre for Narrative Research, and supervising a wide-range of PhD students. I am a member of the School Ethics Committee and the University R, K & E Committee.

• Psychosocial basis of political commitment
• Gender and aging
• Generations
• Counter-narratives
• Political psychology of Forgiveness
• Psychological challenges associated with acute political change
• Collective memory/ Politics of memory
• Patriotism
• Life histories
• Feminist methodology

• BA Sociology
• MA Narrative Research
• PhD
  • Current PhD students:
    • Ali Ali: The Determinants of Migration Decisions Amongst Iraqi Refugees
    • Kathleen Coppens: Back home? Social integration and coping with trauma in former child soldiers in Northern Uganda (jointly supervised with Vrije Universiteit Brussel; funded by the Belgium Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Peace Building)
    • Mastoureh Fahti: Class narratives of Iranian Women Migrants in Britain
    • Solveigh Goett: Linking Threads of Experience and Lines of Thought: Everyday Textiles in the Narration of the Self (funded by the AHRC)
    • Laura Golbuff: Is cycling the new cycling?:The re-emergence, re-positioning and representation of cycling in London, Paris & New York (funded by UK Transport Research Centre)
    • Vasantha Reddy: Towards the development of an oral selection procedure in Fashion: Using life histories (jointly supervised with the Durban University of Technology, South Africa)
    • Nicola Samson: Narratives of Belonging: Life Histories of Women in East London post Second World War (Funded by the AHRC)

• BA Sociology
  • IS 3220 Life Histories
  • IS 3221 Generations, Age and Meaning
• MA Narrative Research
  • ISM 301 Narrative Research
  • ISM 302 Narrative Practice

Monographs

• (2010) “Beyond narrative: The shape of traumatic testimony” in Hyvärinen, M., Hydén, L.C. , M. Saarenheimo, and Tamboukou, M. (eds.) Beyond narrative coherence Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• (2009) “The narrative complexity of successful aging” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Special issue on Theorising Aging Studies Vol. 29/1-2: 73-83.
• (2009) “Against good advice: Reflections on conducting research in a country where you don’t speak the language” (reprinted from 1995 publication in The Oral History Review) in Harrison, B., ed. Life story research Volumes 1-4 London: Sage.
• (2008) “Never the last word: Narrative research and secondary analysis” in Squire, C., M. Tamboukou, and M. Andrews, eds. Doing narrative research London: Sage.
• (2007) Shaping history: Narratives of political change Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2008 Outstanding book of the year award, American Education Research Association, Narrative and Research Special Interest Group.
• (1991/ re-issued 2008) Lifetimes of commitment: Aging, politics, psychology Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Edited Collections

• (2008) co-edited with Squire, C. and M. Tamboukou Doing narrative research London: Sage Publications.
• (2004) co-edited with Bamberg, M. Considering Counter-narratives: Narration and resistance Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
• (2000) co-edited with Shelley Day Sclater, Corinne Squire, and Amal Treacher Lines of narrative: Psychosocial perspectives London: Routledge. Republished in 2004 by Transaction Publishers, London, as The uses of narrative: Explorations in Sociology, Psychology, and Cultural Studies.

Journal Articles

• (forthcoming) “Beyond narrative: Beginnings and Endings of Traumatic Testimony” Qualitative Inquiry Special Issue on Broken, Unfinished and Incomplete Narratives.
• (forthcoming) “Narrative complexity of successful aging” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Special issue on Theorising Aging Studies.
• (2009) “The narrative complexity of successful aging” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Special issue on Theorising Aging Studies Vol. 29/1-2: 73-83.
• (2007) Ruppel, Paul Sebastian; Dege, Martin; Andrews, Molly & Squire, Corinne. “Tackling Problems of Qualitative Social Research: A Conversation.” Conference Essay: Methods in Dialogue [129 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(1), Art. 41, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/1-08/08-1-41-e.htm .
• (2006) “Breaking down barriers: Feminism, politics, and psychology” Feminism and psychology 16(1): 13-17.
• (2003) “Truth commissions and collective memory” Invited article for special issue on Cultural Memory, Media, Culture and Society 25/1: 45-66.
• (2002) “Feminist research with non-feminist and anti-feminist women: Meeting the challenge” Feminism and Psychology 12/1: 55-78.
• (2002) “Memories of mother: Counter-narratives of early maternal influence” Narrative Inquiry 12/1: 7-27.
• (2002) “Introduction: Counter-narratives and the power to oppose” Narrative inquiry 12/1:1-6.

Book chapters

• (2010) “Beyond narrative: The shape of traumatic testimony” in Hyvärinen, M., Hydén, L.C. , M. Saarenheimo, and Tamboukou, M. (eds.) Beyond narrative coherence Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• (2009) “The narrative complexity of successful aging” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Special issue on Theorising Aging Studies Vol. 29/1-2: 73-83.
• (2009) “Against good advice: Reflections on conducting research in a country where you don’t speak the language” (reprinted from 1995 publication in The Oral History Review) in Harrison, B., ed. Life story research Volumes 1-4 London: Sage.
• (2008) co-edited with Squire, C. and M. Tamboukou Doing narrative research London: Sage Publications.
• (2008) “Never the last word: Narrative research and secondary analysis” in Squire, C., M. Tamboukou, and M. Andrews, eds. Doing narrative research London: Sage.
• (2008) “Never the last word: Narrative research and secondary analysis” in Squire, C., M. Tamboukou, and M. Andrews, eds. Doing Narrative Research London: Sage.
• (2006) “Exploring cultural boundaries” in Clandinin, J., ed. Handbook of narrative inquiry London: Sage.
• (2004), with Day Sclater, S., C. Squire and M. Tamboukou, “Stories of narrative research” in Seale, C., D. Silverman, J. Gubrium and G. Gobo, eds. Qualitative Research Practice London: Sage
• (2004) with Michael Bamberg “Introduction” ” in Bamberg, M. and M. Andrews, eds. Considering Counter-narratives: Narration and Resistance Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
• (2004) “Memories of mother: Counter-narratives of early maternal influence” in Bamberg, M. and M. Andrews, eds. Considering Counter-narratives: Narration and Resistance Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
• (2004) “Response to Commentaries” in Bamberg, M. and M. Andrews, eds. Considering Counter-narratives: Narration and Resistance Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
• (2003) “Generational consciousness, dialogue, and political engagement” in Edmunds, June and Bryan Turner, eds. Generational consciousness, narrative and politics Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield.
• (2003) “Continuity and discontinuity of East German identity following the fall of the Berlin Wall: A case study” in Gready, Paul, ed, Cultures of political transition: Memory, identity and voice London: Pluto Press.

Translations of work

• (in press) “Biographie und Geschichte: Dynamiken individueller und kollektiver politischer Erzählungen” [Problems of biography and history: Dynamics of individual and collective political narratives] In: M. Dege, C. Dege, T. Grallert, N. Chimirri (Eds.). Können Marginalisierte widersprechen? Sozialwissenschaften und politisches Handeln. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag
• "Das Erwachen des politischen Bewubtseines. Eine Fallstudie”[Awakening of Political Consciousness: A Case Study] in Hoerning, Erika M., ed. (2000) Biographisch Sozialisation Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius.
• "Politika zapominani: rekonstrukce minulosti v prechodu k postkomunismu" [The Politics of Forgetting: Reconstructions of the Past in the Transition to Post-communism] in Konopasek, Zdenek, ed. (2000) Otevrana minulost: autobiografika sociologie statniho socialismu [Opening the Past: Autobiographical Sociology of State Socialism] Prague: Charles University Press.
• ‘“Pero si no he acabado.. Tengo mάs que contra”’: Las limitaciones de las narraciones estructuaradas de los testimonios públicos’ [‘”But I am not finished…there is more”: Public testimony and the limitation of structured narratives’] (forthcoming) Antipoda No. 4.

Miscellaneous Professional Activities

• 2008 Outstanding book of the year award, American Education Research Association, Narrative and Research Special Interest Group.

• Advisory board, Major Leverhulme Grant, ‘Gendered Ceremony and Ritual in Parliaments: India, South Africa and Westminster ’ 2007-2011.

• Advisory board, Major ESRC award programme on Identities and Social Action Programme: Identity, Performance and Social Action: The Use of Community Theatre Among Refugees April 2005 – March 2008

• Conference organizing committee, International Society of Political Psychology, Paris 2008.

• Governing Council, International Society for Political Psychology (2006- )

• Chair, Dissertation of the Year Award Committee, International Society for Political Psychology (2008-2009)

• Methodology training workshop for ESRC Social Identities and Action Project, Milton Keynes, May 2005.

• 2005 Selection Committee for the Harold Lasswell and Nevitt Sanford Awards, International Society of Political Psychology.

• Co-director, Centre for Narrative Research in the Social Sciences, University of East London. (2000- )Centre of Narrative Research

• Advisory Committee, Clark/Holy Cross Consortium on Narrative (2004 - )

• Data sets archived at the British Library, Nottingham University (through ESRC Qualitdata) and the Max-Planck Institut, Berlin.

More than 30 articles and book chapters, including in Spanish, Czech and German. Books include the following:

Journal Articles

• (2000) "Forgiveness in Context" Journal of Moral Education Vol. 29 No. 1: 75-86.
• (2000) “Ageful and proud” Ageing and Society 20: 791-795.
• (1999) "The Seduction of Agelessness" Ageing and Society Vol. 19: 301-318.
• (1999) “Truth-telling, Justice, and Forgiveness: A Study of East Germany’s “Truth Commission” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society Vol. 13, No. 1: 103-120.
• (1998) "Criticism/Self-Criticism in East Germany: Contradictions between Theory and Practice" Critical Sociology Vol. 24, No. 1/2.
• (1997) "Life Review in the Context of Acute Social Transition: The case of East Germany"
  British Journal of Social Psychology 36, 273-290.
• (1995) "Against Good Advice: Reflections on Conducting Research in a Country Where You Don't Speak the Language" Oral History Review 20/1: 75-86.

Book chapters

• (2000)"Text in a Changing Context: Reconstructing Lives in East Germany" in Bornat, Joanna, Prue Chamberlayne and Tom Wengraf, eds. The turn to biographical methods in Social Science: Comparative issues and examples London: Routledge.
• (2000) with Konopasek, Zdenek, “A cautious ethnography of socialism: Autobiographical narrative in the Czech Republic” in Andrews, M., S. Day Sclater, C. Squire and A. Treacher, eds. ) Lines of narrative: Psychosocial perspectives London: Routledge.
• (1997) "Fighting for 'the finest image we have of her: Patriotism and Oppositional Politics" in Staub, Ervin and Bar Tal, Daniel, eds. Patriotism in the life of individuals and nations Chicago: Nelson Hall.

External committee membership

• Editorial Board, Political Psychology, from 2010.
• Editorial Board, Journal fűr Psychologie: Theorie, Forschung, Praxis, from 2010.
• Editorial Board, Narrative Works: Issues, Investigations, & Interventions, from 2010.
• Conference organizing committee, International Society of Political Psychology, Paris 2008.
• Governing Council, International Society for Political Psychology (2006- )
• Chair, Dissertation Award Committee, International Society for Political Psychology, 2008-2009

Advisory Boards

• Advisory board, Major Leverhulme Grant, ‘Gendered Ceremony and Ritual in Parliaments: India, South Africa and Westminster ’ 2007-2011.
• Advisory board, Major ESRC award programme on Identities and Social Action Programme: Identity, Performance and Social Action: The Use of Community Theatre Among Refugees April 2005 – March 2008
• Advisory Board for `Surviving prison in later life' (ESRC) 2002-2004
• Advisory Committee, Clark/Holy Cross Consortium on Narrative (2004 - )

Aretha, me and two million others:
Revitalising the American national narrative

Using Barack Obama’s election to the US presidency as a case study, this article demonstrates the critical role of political narratives in realising social change. National narratives are never static; rather the stories which come to define the nation are reconstructed over time; each generation must reinvent for itself its own national narrative. In this way, the past is never past, but is reconstructed to meet the needs of the present day. By drawing heavily on historical narratives of the founding fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and leaders in the civil rights movement, and interweaving these narratives with his own biography and the personal stories of Americans across the land, Barack Obama has breathed new life into the founding principle of the country: E pluribus unum, “out of many, one.” The article explores the way in which collective memory and politics come together in the making and remaking of national narratives, and discusses the function of political narratives more generally.

Key words: political narrative, Barack Obama, collective memory, American identity, social movements

Beyond narrative:
The shape of traumatic testimony

This paper will explore the limits and possibilities of narratives in which individuals turn to language to communicate the inexpressibility of experiences they have endured. The central dilemma for many survivors of trauma is that they must tell their stories, and yet their stories cannot be told. Traumatic experiences often defy understanding; testimony of those who have survived can be marked by what is not there: coherence, structure, meaning, comprehensibility. The actual emplotment of trauma testimony into conventional narrative configurations - contained in time- transforms them into something which they are not: experiences which are endowed with a particular wholeness, which occurred in the past, and which have now ended. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relationship between language and silence in traumatic testimony.

The narrative complexity of successful aging

As there is no homogenous experience of old age, neither can any one model of ‘successful aging’ be applicable to all persons. The article begins with a review of the debates in the last decade within gerontology regarding ‘the new aging’ and argues for an increased visibility of alternative models of successful aging, and a promotion of conversations between generations considering possible life pathways. The article identifies a number of different sources for such models, and concludes with some personal reflections on the importance of this topic, for everyone as we contemplate different desirable blueprints for lives in general, and for our own.

Key words: successful aging: conscious aging; ‘the new gerontology’; cultural narratives;

www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/index.htm