Will the war in Gaza find a resolution, or will it linger on and pull in other neighboring countries? Do I need yet another COVID vaccine shot? Am I about to lose my job to AI?

The world has always been teeming with existential threats coming at us in waves on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Walter Parkes, a screenwriter and producer of more than 50 films, says one of the best tools we have to process and understand all that information is a tool as old as time: Storytelling.

At Thursday’s Guilford College Bryan Series program, Walter told a Tanger Center audience that civilizations have always passed on important ideas and information through stories. Stories, the best of them, actually work as an organizing tool that can make us understand the world and its power,” says Parkes.

“We’re living in a time right now that’s really governed by either scientific or social processes that we just aren’t quite equipped to understand. Whether it’s the COVID crisis that crippled us for three years or what’s on everyone’s mind – AI? Does anyone really understand that? We tend to look for ways that we can understand and organize these ideas and one of the most powerful ways to do that … is through narrative.”

Walter says not everyone “is hardwired to be storytellers but we’re all story listeners.”

A good story, says Walter, can explain the most complicated issue. “It brings you into the process because it's giving you information,” he says. “Story is a neurologically hardwired algorithm by which humans can understand or misunderstand enormous amounts of complex information.”

Walter has made a successful career out of storytelling. Among the films he has helped write or produce are “WarGames,” “Awakenings,” “Sneakers” and “Gladiator,” which earned an Academy Award for best picture in 2001.
 

Thursday's program included a 50-minute talk by Walter followed by a conversation and Q&A with Guilford President Kyle Farmbry.

Walter was the second of five Bryan Series speakers for the series’ 19th subscription season. The season resumes Nov. 9 with two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Lynsey Addario sharing images and stories about her work as a wartime photojournalist in a program entitled "It's What I Do."

The Bryan Series continues in 2024 with Space Shuttle commander and NASA administrator Charles Bolden on Feb. 8 and news anchor and journalist Judy Woodruff on April 9.

Tickets for all Bryan Series talks can be purchased online through the Tanger Center or in person during the Tanger box office 12 - 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.