The Storytellers Lab

A place where the stories go.

Contact

About us

Our current work

Lab In Community

join the crew

recent events

film festival 2022

Recent research & recruitment

scroll down to Explore Our heart work

The Storytellers Lab

A place where the stories go.

Contact

About us

Our current work

Lab In Community

join the crew

recent events

film festival 2022

Recent Research Recruitment

the

story

tellers lab

The Storytellers Lab is comprised of scholars, community members and leaders, students and friends who use interpretative and arts-based qualitative methods to shed light on identity, culture, and society through diverse perspectives and stories.

These stories are shared through various methods in order to impact our local, cultural, and regional knowledge.

Back home

Meet the founder & director

Asha S. Winfield, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication. Winfield is a critical/cultural media scholar with a focus on the stories (creation, rituals and practices) of Black individuals and groups occurring in the media, culture and society. As a researcher and filmmaker, she aims to use intersectionality, counternarratives, and Black feminist thought to frame and center the experiences of Black people as they relate to audience reception through meaning-making and identity-making.

Winfield’s research seeks to investigate and make space for diverse Black stories inside and around the media and community. Her work has been published in Health Communication, Women’s Studies in Communication, several book chapters and digital research forums like InMedia Res. Her documentary,Black Experiences with COVID-19, Media, Mourning & Faith, is set to be released in 2022. Additionally, her documentary on Black women barbers inside of Black historical barbershops is still in development.

Winfield is a 2012 graduate of Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and a 2015 graduate of the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. She earned a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 2021. Her dissertation, "I Don't See Myself": Exploring Reception To Hollywood’s Construction Of Memory Through Black Women’s Biopics, explores Black women’s silhouetted representation in Hollywood’s version of history and frames new concepts like “intersectional call and response” and the “Black living room pedagogy” where learning Black history is shaped by Black memories and storytellers.

Winfield is also the founder and director of the forthcoming research group The Storyteller’s Lab at LSU. This group of academic storytellers utilizes qualitative research (community-based, participatory, photovoice and video voice research) in concert with documentary filmmakers to share the cultural and historical narratives of everyday people in different contexts.

The mission of the TSL is to amplify voices of the storytellers in the academy and community. By centering the voices of scholars who have historically been underrepresentated, minoritized, and marginalized by dominant culture, we create a beautiful and needful resistance using our lived experiences through film and research.

Those experiences become our curriculum by which we better understand our global identities and diverse world.

LET THE PEOPLE TELL THEIR OWN STORY!

Back home

Meet thE teAm

Back home

Meet

thE

teAm

Tiffany R. Smith is a doctoral student in Media and Public Affairs at Manship School of Mass Communication. Her research interests are intersectionality, race, gender and sexuality, media representation, and the African diaspora. Before attending LSU, Tiffany was a higher education professional focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion. She received her B.A. in communication at Bowling Green State University and M.A. in Global Communication at Kennesaw State University.

Beyond her social justice activism within academia, she has worked for Amnesty International, The Walter Rodney Foundation, Atlanta Jobs with Justice, and is a trainer of Nonviolence365 at the King Center in Atlanta, GA. She is a Founding Member at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

Tiffany R. Smith

Back home

Meet

thE

teAm

Joshua is working on a PhD in Media & Public Affairs in the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU. He is primarily interested in the intersection of political communication and science skepticism, with a specific interest in COVID-19—how we view it and the intersectional vulnerabilities and racial disparities associated with it. Aspiring to be a mixed methods scholar, the lens through which he conducts his research is critical theory and intersectionality. Originally from Texas, where he went to community college and then university, Joshua went on to receive an M.A. in mass communication from the

University of Minnesota.

joshua jordan

Back home

Who is TSL for?

for us!

For Storytellers,

story makers, and

academic creatives.

This collaborative works to visualize new and old

narratives through visual storytelling and arts-based methods.

we are currently accepting applications from lsu students.

Back home

Current Documentary & Community Projects

Back home

preview - our black covid stories

Back home

Back home

What kind of stories matter?

Oral histories, life stories, neighborhood folklore, and cultural stories are all a part of our knowledge production. Through visual storytelling and research, this lab centers the experiences of our communities.

From non-fiction to fictional stories based on reality and real events, this is our space to show whole and complete.

The storytellers lab on film

launchinG the DeparTment of African and African American studies

The storytellers lab - 2021 Promo

Back home

What we do: Events

• Yearly documentary project under the direction of Dr. Winfield
• Film Screenings
  
• Existing Project - Black COVID-19 Stories
  
• Annual Short Film Festival + Collaborative (Fall 2022)
• Telling Black Stories Event- Every Semester
• Inviting Guest Speakers from community and school
  

Back home

What we do: Hands on Learning

• Guest speakers from local creatives
• Workshops with creatives in the field
• Partnership with Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs
  

Back home

Back home

What we do:

empowering community voices

Capturing community stories on film to bring history and memory to the forefront for learning and advocacy

• Baton Rouge
  
• Louisiana
  
• The South
  

Join the Crew!

Are you a student at Louisiana State University?

We are looking for creatives, directors, filming crew, writers, and other volunteers looking to learn more about community & cultural storytelling. #BigStorytellers

Dr. Asha S. Winfield

Director of TSL

aswinfield@lsu.edu

Tiffany R. Smith

Graduate Assistant

tsmi332@lsu.edu

Back home

fall

2022

" a place where the stories go"

Back home

inaugural short Film

Festival

for more information

aswinfield@lsu.edu

Submission Topics

• Documentary
  
• News Stories
• Fictional Visual Storytelling

• Black Stories Matter
• Women, Gender & Sexuality
• Culture & Identity Speaks
• Local & Strong
• Unsung Heros
• Health Narratives
• COVID-19 Stories
  
• Public Health Issues
• Environmental Issues

Want to collaborate?

Message me at

aswinfield@lsu.edu

Back home