Welcome
You have navigated to the personal website of H. L. (Bud) Goodall, Jr. I am a professor of communication who is all about narratives and their central role in scholarship, politics, cultures, and counter-terrorism.
I live and work as a narrative ethnographer, which is to say that I am never not working, never not writing, and never not learning more about narrative ways of knowing. For me, narratives offer answers to four questions:
- How do we make sense of everyday life?
- How do we connect new information to existing knowledge?
- How do we justify the resulting actions we take?
- Who do I want to be in the future and how might I best accomplish that life?
My blog, “The Daily Narrative,” is here for your reading and commenting pleasure … add your own narrative or counter mine.
In addition to the blog, please check out my recent publications, public appearances, and forthcoming books and articles. Let me and the others who read it know what you think, what you like, what you don’t like, and, please, share with us your stories …
- H.L. (Bud) Goodall, Jr.
Latest Blog Posts
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Speechless in Phoenix
“Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”
David Whyte, “Sweet Darkness”
Twice this week I have been rendered alive and speechless by dear friends who also happen to be valued colleagues.
The first episode of speechlessness occurred when Amira de la Garza shared with me the progress she, Bob Krizek, and Nick Trujillo have… Read more... -
A Good Week of Answered Prayers and Continuing Wonder
“Which are the magic
moments in ordinary
time? All of them,
for those who can see.”
--Tim Dlugos, “Ordinary Time”
This has been a week of good news, visits, gifts, a graduation, and much happiness. We are truly blessed and very grateful each and every day. And blessed also for the wonder of another starry, starry night.
The good news was reported on Facebook right after we received it from Dr. Robin on Wednesday afternoon… Read more... -
Things We Take For Granted ... Until
The first sign of trouble with our air conditioning was on Monday and it was an obvious sign: adjusting the thermostat down to 78 degrees didn’t produce the usual start-up whir of a electric motor nor the reassuring whip-whip-whip of a fan. Adjusting it down further – to 75, then to 70, then all the way down to 60 met with the same aural absence and a gradual admission that, in fact, we had a… Read more...
Featured Books
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Counter-Narrative 
“A rhetorical tour de force that offers academics and the public alike a persuasive counterstatement against far right political views... to reclaim the original intention of U.S. democracy—‘to promote the common good.’”
- Lawrence R. Frey, Calgaard Professor of Communication and Social Justice, Trinity University
