Learning Lore

About Learning Lore

Learning Lore is a podcast about live storytelling and education, hosted by Dr. Ola Henricsson and Dr. Catherine MacHale Gunnarsson from the Department of Pedagogical, Curricular and Professional Studies at the University of Gothenburg. In each episode, we invite a guest to share a story with us and our listeners. We then discuss how live storytelling relates to teaching and learning—and how the experience of storytelling can change us and our world.

Publisher

IDPP - GU

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Jul 2024

Latest episode

28 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

19 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   28 Sept 2026

   Csenge Zalka

   Zalka Csenge Virág is a storyteller and author from Hungary. She has been a professional storyteller for 20 years, and holds a master's degree in Storytelling and a PhD in Culture Studies. She travels the world, performing traditional tales, epics, and myths in English, Spanish, and Hungarian. She has published several folktale collections both in the USA and in Hungary.

2. 

   27 Aug 2026

   Tom van Mieghem

   Tom van Mieghem is a storyteller from Belgium who explores the simplicity of storytelling. He began as a puppeteer and saw similarities between creating images in the audience’s mind and the way stories do so. He leads workshops for young storytellers, and we met him at the Ljungby Music and Storytelling Festival last summer.

3. 

   6 Jul 2026

   Emily Hennessey

   EMILY HENNESSEY is a dynamic performance storyteller often found wielding a stick and stamping her feet as she embraces epics, myths, wondertales and folktales from across the world.  Work and travel in India have kindled in Emily a great love of Hindu mythology. She’s journeyed over 10,000 miles across India by train, bus, rattling rickshaw and rickety bicycle. She’s lived with a yak-herding family on the Tibetan plateau, studied Kathakali dance-drama in Kerala and worked at the Kattaikkuttu School in Tamil Nadu, learning from the children who perform stories from the Mahabharata through music, dance and song. With a Swedish background, Emily also has a passion for the Norse Myths and Scandinavian folklore. Emily came to storytelling while studying Drama & Theatre Studies at the University of Kent where she met storyteller Dr Vayu Naidu. Emily completed a storytelling apprenticeship with Vayu, and later trained with Ben Haggarty. She’s also had the privilege of training with Indian Pandvani performer, Ritu Verma.  Recent performances include the Soho Theatre, Richmix, British Museum, the Earthouse and York Theatre Royal with the Crick Crack Club, the Royal Opera House, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Viking Ship Museum in Denmark, Nordic House in Iceland, Kathakar Storytelling Festival in Delhi, tours of India with British Council and many European clubs and festivals. Emily is also a key member of the Pandvani108 ensemble.  Emily lives in the Lake District with her children and husband, storyteller and musician, Nick Hennessey. (http://nickhennessey.co.uk/) Together they run Stealing Thunder (https://stealingthunder.co.uk/) and host the Stealing Thunder Storytelling Festival (https://stealingthunder.co.uk/festival-2025).

4. 

   28 Apr 2026

   Ebba Lisberg Jensen

   Ebba Lisberg Jensen is a human ecologist, who for many years did research on forestry, biodiversity and sustainable urban development. She is a frequent participant in the storytelling group here at the department of pedagogical, curricural and professional studies. She is a humanities scholar always ending up in biology. Presently, Ebba is a senior lecturer at the teacher education at the University of Gothenburg. Her main professional focus is education for sustainable development, namely how individuals and society understand ecosystem functions and the interdependence between humans and nature. Privately, Ebba cherishes all forms of history, fairytales and Nordic sentimental song lyrics.

5. 

   16 Mar 2026

   Abdulrahman Abou Dahesh

   Abdulrahman is a Fulbright scholar from Lebanon and holds a MSc in Neuroscience from The University of Texas at Dallas. He is interested in teaching neuroscience to children as a form of science education and social-emotional learning. At his startup, Neurochem Lab, Abdul develops neuroscience educational programs, using storytelling as his primary learning approach.

6. 

   30 Jan 2026

   Si Poole

   Dr Si Poole, is an Associate Professor of Cultural Education at the University of Chester, UK; He is a folklorist, trustee of the Mythstories museum and a Director and Researcher at the Centre for Research into Education, Creativity and Arts through Practice (RECAP). His work currently focuses on gardening in education, and as the founder and holder of the National Plant collection of Mentha, his work champions gardening as a creative praxis and considers what that means for communities; his research also covers a wide array of other creative praxes and pedagogies; storytelling; walking methodologies; and the intercultural use of music; informal songwriting; and arts, and crafts, based initiatives. He has worked in 18 countries developing research initiatives and presenting interactive vocal performances, most recently as a Visiting Professor at Gothenburg University, and next month a Visiting Professor at Uppsala University, Sweden. Si is also a published poet; Managing Director of Soil Records; and has written and released seven albums to critical acclaim and is still singing and songwriting with 'the loose kites’ to this day.

7. 

   4 Dec 2025

   Clare Murphy

   Dublin born storyteller Clare Murphy has worked with story for 19 years. SHe has performed on stages around Europe and the Americas for audiences of 5000 people. She tells myth, folklore, wisdom tales, science, and history, as well as the occasional true story. She teaches and consults with all kinds of people and organisations worldwide from The Royal Shakespeare Company to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to The New Zealand All Blacks Rugby team.

8. 

   3 Nov 2025

   Rachelle Breuer and Andrea Mercier-Droste

   Meet two teacher educators from Ludwigsburg in Germany. They have experience of using storytelling in language teaching. Andrea tells a bilingual version of Little red riding hood. Rachelle Breuer, M.A. has taught college-level EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and German as a Foreign Language in the U.S. and Germany, and she currently works as an EFL instructor / academic staff member in the Institute of English at Ludwigsburg University of Education. Andrea Mercier-Droste, M.A. has taught college-level EFL/ESL (English as a Foreign/Second Language) in the U.S. and. Germany, as well as Linguistics and Applied Linguistics in Germany. She currently works as a linguistics instructor / academic staff member in the Institute of English at Ludwigsburg University of Education, Germany. Her professional interests include bilingualism/multilingualism, language identity, language bans and bias, language acquisition and language attitudes. She has a passion for bilingual storytelling, code-switching, debunking myths about bilinguals/multilinguals, and encouraging a more inclusive definition of bilingualism/multilingualism.

9. 

   5 Oct 2025

   Daniel Morden

   Daniel Morden has been a professional teller of traditional tales since 1989. He has travelled all over the world, from the Arctic to the Pacific to the Caribbean, sharing and collecting stories. He has appeared at the National Theatre, Hay Festival, The National Storytelling Festival of America, WOMAD, many theatres, arts centres, festivals…and thousands of schools.In 2017 he was awarded the Hay Festival Medal for his services to storytelling.    He has written several award-winning anthologies of traditional stories, includingDARK TALES FROM THE WOODSHe also coaches storytellers and teaches an annual beginners weekend at Ty Newydd Writer’s Centre.

10. 

    19 Aug 2025

    Mara Menzies

    It was at the Music and Storytelling Festival in Ljungby last summer that we met Mara Menzi from Kenya. And we took the opportunity to record a podcast episode when we had the chance. It became a very interesting conversation about storytelling's ability to spread hope, which is important in our time. Mara is an award-winning storyteller and author who has captivated audiences across more than 30 countries worldwide. The Ljungby festival marks her very first performance in Sweden! She is passionate about the transformative power of story. She is also the visionary founder of Msitu wa Ndoto, a groundbreaking initiative operating from the oldest human burial site in Africa (78000 years old),that celebrates nature and cultural heritage. She is currently in the process of creating East Africa's first story forest.

11. 

    16 Jun 2025

    Svend-Erik Engh and Neil Sutcliffe

    This pod cast is recorded live infront of an audience at the music and storytelling festival in Ljungby 13th of June 2025. Svend-Erik Engh, are a Danish storyteller based in Edinburgh. He brings Viking sagas, Norse myths, and Scandinavian folktales to life with a vivid, physical style shaped by his training at Odin Teatret. With over 30 years of experience, he has performed across the UK and Europe, including acclaimed shows like GIANTS and Gullrun’s Saga. His collaborations with illustrator Tea Bendix have led to stage productions and the book Danish Folk Tales (The History Press, 2023). He has giving storytelling workshops for schools and storytellers. Neil Sutcliffe is an accordionist and folksinger from Scotland. After completing the degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, he has built a performing career encompassing both traditional and classical music. Together Neil and Svend-Erik have created Walk the Oars, Wolves Within and Gullruns Saga, the latter part of the the music and storytelling festival in Ljungby. In this pod cast Neil plays accordion and Svend-Erik tells a folktale and we all consider the power of storytelling.

12. 

    20 May 2025

    Kersti Ståbi

    Swedish storyteller, singer and folk musician. 2014 she started a Masters at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, a masters that came to focus on learning and creating by copying. This lead to her creating a series of performances with the Eddic Poem Voluspá, copying masters of different epic singing- and storytelling traditions around the world. At the moment she is touring The Hairy Girl, a storytelling performance in English, telling a Norwegian fairytale with a big Japanese Taiko Drum. Kersti has worked a lot as a storyteller in schools, often letting children take over her stories and tell them themselves. Now she is part of the Storyraiders, a group introducing the Swedish concept of Storyraids to primary schools in the UK.

13. 

    16 Apr 2025

    Camilla Brudin Borg

    Dr. Camilla Brudin Borg is a Senior Lecturer inLiterary Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her work focuses on innovative methodological development at the intersection of ecocriticism, narrative studies, andliterary futures. She leads research projects that explore the use of utopian genres as creative tools for imagining a wider range of possible futures. Her collaborations includeclimate researchers, environmental education experts, citizens, and students. In 2022, Dr. Brudin Borg was invited to participate as a panelist during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, where she discussed “The Future of Life” and her explorative work on utopian methodologies to envision sustainable future imaginaries. She is also the founder and leader of the international research network One by Walking, where she contributes with investigations in transdisciplinary methodological perspectives on narration and walking, with a focus on long-distance hiking. Additionally, she is the co-editor of Contemporary Ecocritical Methods (2024) and the editor of Framtidsutopier (2023), a collection of new ecological utopian stories to be used in schools.

14. 

    27 Jan 2025

    Keri Facer

    Keri Facer is Professor of Educational and Social Futures at the University of Bristol, where she works, among other things, on questions of time and temporality, futures and storytelling in shaping how societies think about education, and educational purpose.  She leads the British Academy Programme ‘Times of a Just Transition’ – which is looking at how ideas of time, and temporal narratives, shape how societies frame and address sustainability challenges. You have worked for 25 years on the role of formal and popular education in uncertain times.

15. 

    22 Dec 2024

    Steve Killick

    Steve is a Clinical Psychologist and Storyteller who loves to work at the interface of these two areas- He is interested in how stories and storytelling can be applied in education and health and has written several books and papers in this area. He has written Telling Tales-Storytelling and Emotional Literacy - with Taffy Thomas - and Feelings are Funny Things-A storytelling toolkit' for schools - with Phil Okwedy. He has been very involved in the development of a project for schools, 'Feelings are Funny Things' which uses stories to explore our emotional lives in a way that safe and playful. He has taught, performed and run workshops at many universitas and storytelling festivals throughout Europe and is a Visiting Fellow at Centre for Storytelling, University of South Wales.

16. 

    17 Nov 2024

    Mimesis Heidi Dahlsveen

    Mimesis Heidi Dahlsveen has worked as a storyteller since 1996 both national and abroad. Her artistic projects are often developed through working interdisciplinary with other artists, where she combines traditional and autobiographical narratives with theory. She is parttime associate professor in oral storytelling at Oslomet – metropolitan university in Oslo, Norway. Her research focus is on how the traditional narratives shed light on contemporary themes, and the poetic aspects of artistic processes. She has written several academic articles on oral storytelling, where she uses artistic research as an input to understand oral storytelling and narratives.

17. 

    26 Oct 2024

    Sally Windsor

    Sally Windsor is an Associate Professor in Sustainability and International Education here at the Department of Pedagogical, Curricular and Professional Studies at the University of Gothenburg. She teach courses in Education for Sustainable Development, and International and Global Education. Her research interests include creative and arts-based teaching for sustainability, and climate change education. She is especially interested in teaching about social sustainability in terms of understanding “living well”  together in a “world worth living in” and has recently been involved in an international ‘listening project’ named just that “Living well in a world with living in for all”.

18. 

    30 Sept 2024

    Abbi Patrix

    Trained at the Drama School Jacques Lecoq  in Paris, Abbi Patrixhas been exploring the art of storytelling for the past thirty years .His workis at the cross-roads of theatre, music and movement,on a permanent quest fornew ways and voices to enrich the form of storytelling.To transmit his searchto young générations of storytellers he created in France and in europe« the labo », a collective and multi-disciplinary space for research,improvisation and transmission.He is a founding member of Fest.

19. 

    4 Jul 2024

    Dominic Kelly

    Dominic Kelly is an international storyteller with a warm, witty and immersive storytelling style. He has captivated audiences around the world. In the UK he has performed at venues including the Barbican, National Theatre, British Museum, and The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival. As a member of Stockholm-based company Fabula Storytelling, he has directed performances at theatres and arts centres across Scandinavia, including Norway’s Riksscenen. He has helped thousands of young people find their narrative voice through projects in schools across the UK and Sweden, particularly in areas of high social deprivation in England.

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