Dissertation Proposal: From Stories of Violence to Stories of Peace: Applying Narrative Theory to the Transformation of Violent Extremists -- Agatha Glowacki

This study examines the transformation of individuals who have renounced violence and now work for nonviolent social change.  This study will analyze how the narratives -- rather than the individuals themselves -- of terrorists, right wing extremists, and gang members evolve from stories justifying violence towards those justifying compassion and tolerance.  There is relatively little scholarship available on such individuals and most of the studies that do exist attempt to study this transformation through the lens of psychological and behavioral theories.  The narrative perspective has never been applied to this topic, and thus this research provides a new and unique lens that is uniquely capable of explaining this dynamic and complex phenomenon.