URL for course website: http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/Herman/Eng532.html
Course Description:
Welcome! This class is designed to provide an overview of some
of the many approaches to narrative analysis that have emerged, in a variety
of disciplines, during the past several decades. As accounts of what
happened to particular people in particular circumstances and with specific
consequences, stories have been recognized as a basic human strategy for
coming to terms with time, process, and change. We will thus draw
on a range of disciplinary frameworks, including sociolinguistics and discourse
analysis, communication studies, narratology, philosophy, media studies,
sociology, and social and cognitive psychology, to explore the many forms
and functions of narrative viewed as a discourse genre, a cognitive style,
and a resource for oral, written, and visual communication.
To get a better sense of the scope and limits of
narrative, and to test the descriptive and explanatory potential of approaches
to narrative analysis, we will examine several kinds of narratives over
the course of the semester, including stories told during face-to-face
interaction, written narratives (fictional as well as nonfictional), and
multimedia narratives (our test-cases will be a film narrative and a web-based
fictional hypertext). Questions to be considered include the following:
How transportable or generalizable are the analytic frameworks under study?
Can models for understanding narratives told in face-to-face interaction
throw light on written narratives, and vice versa? Is there an isolable
set of necessary and sufficient conditions for narrative across all formats,
or do the scope and limits of narrative vary depending on the settings
in which stories are used and interpreted? To what extent does narrative
tap into universal cognitive dispositions and capacities, and to what extent
is it culturally and even situationally variable? What are the costs
and benefits of an interdisciplinary approach to narrative analysis?
Texts and Sample Narratives:
Also, the following text is recommended for this course (I have ordered it through NCSU bookstores):
1. Active class participation.
2. Brief oral reports/presentations, which should be 10-15 minutes
in length (no longer than 15 minutes, please); everyone will give one report
over the course of the semester. The presentations, which should
focus on specific instances of narrative discourse, are designed to foster
class discussion about the problems as well as the potentials of the theoretical
models covered in the assigned readings. What features of your sample
narrative can the model you are reporting on help illuminate? What
features does the model have trouble describing or explaining? (N.B.:
if you report on a story told in the context of face-to-face interaction,
please provide a transcript of the story when you give your presentation.)
3. A short (3-5 page) midterm paper, due Thursday, March 18.
Your midterm paper should investigate the same narrative that you analyzed
(or will analyze) in your oral presentation, but use a different theoretical
model to examine that story. Just like your oral presentation, your
short paper should focus on the possibilities as well as the limits of
the theoretical framework you are using as your investigative lens.
4. An abstract (250-500 words) corresponding to items 5 and 6
below. Abstracts should (a) state and describe the research problem
you are addressing; (b) situate that problem in the context of previous
scholarship devoted to the issue you intend to explore; and (c) indicate
how your own approach to this problem will advance or enrich or refine
prior scholarship in this connection. Please include a title and
a tentative bibliography. Abstracts are due Thursday, April 1.
5. A 15-minute (= approximately 8-page) conference paper for
oral delivery at The
NC State Colloquium on Narrative Analysis (all submissions guaranteed
acceptance). The Colloquium will be held at the end of the term.
One "wave" of presenters will give their colloquium talks on the last day
of class, i.e., Thursday, April 29. The second, larger wave will
give their talks during the time-slot scheduled for our final exam, i.e.,
Tuesday, May 4, from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m.
6. A longer, written version of item 5, around 20 pages.
The paper is to be turned in on or before Part II of our colloquium, i.e.,
Tuesday, May 4. You need not hand in the shorter version of the paper
that you present at the colloquium.
Grade:
Your grade will be based on the following components (percentages are approximate!):
In-class presentation = 20%
Midterm paper = 20%
Abstract = 10%
Oral presentation at colloquium = 20%
Long paper = 20%
Overall class participation throughout the term = 10%
Course Schedule:
January
T 13 Introduction
Interdisciplinary Foundations for Narrative Analysis
Th 15 Bruner, "The Narrative Construction of Reality" [ER]; Marie-Laure Ryan, entry on "Narrative" (available at http://lamar.colostate.edu/~pwryan/narr.htm); Toolan, chapter 1 of Narrative (pp. 1-14)
T 20 Prince, "Narratology" [ER]; Onega and Landa, "Introduction" (pp. 1-41); Herman, sections of the introductions to Narratologies (pp. 1-14) and Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences (p. 1-14) [ER]; supplemental reading: Herman, "Structuralist Narratology" [ER]
Th 22 Hayden White, "The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality" (in Onega and Landa, pp. 273-85); Marie-Laure Ryan, entry on "Media and Narrative" (available at http://lamar.colostate.edu/~pwryan/narr.htm); Ryan, "Introduction" and chapter 6 of Narrative as Virtual Reality [ER]
Approaches to Narrative in Face-to-Face Interaction
(Before this segment of the course begins, please examine the sample
narrative used in Herman, "Toward a Transmedial Narratology" [ER] and available
as a stand-alone document at
<http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/Herman/storytranscript.html>.
Stories reported on in student presentations will furnish additional sample
narratives in this part of the class.)
T 27 Labov, "The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax" [ER]; Toolan, chapter 6 of Narrative (pp. 143-77)
Th 29 Ochs and Capps, "A Dimensional Approach to Narrative" [ER]; Goodwin, chapters 9 and 10 of He-Said-She-Said [ER]
February
T 3 Jefferson, "Sequential Aspects of Storytelling" [ER]; Wolfson, "A Feature of Performed Narrative: The Conversational Historical Present" [ER]; Schegloff, "'Narrative Analysis' Thirty Years Later" [ER]; Edwards, "Structure and Function in the Analysis of Everyday Narratives" [ER]
Th 5 No class: instructor out of town
T 10 Norrick, "Twice-told Tales" [ER]; Mandelbaum, "Couples Sharing Stories" [ER]; Gleason and Melzi, "The Mutual Construction of Narrative..." [ER]
Th 12 Daiute and Nelson, "Making Sense of the Sense-making Function of Narrative Evaluation" [ER]; Preece, "Collaborators and Critics" [ER]; Toolan, chapter 7 of Narrative
T 17 Buttny, "Sequences and Practical Reasoning" [ER]; Mandelbaum, "Assigning Responsibility in Conversational Storytelling" [ER]; Zubin and Hewitt, "The Deictic Center: A Theory of Deixis in Narrative" [ER]
Th 19 Cassell and McNeill, "Gesture and the Poetics of Prose" [ER]; Haviland, "Pointing, Gesture Spaces, and Mental Maps" [ER]; McNeill, "Introduction" to Language and Gesture [ER]
From Conversational to Written Narrative
(Before this segment of the course begins, please examine the two written texts that we are using as sample narratives: the news story available at <http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/Herman/newsstory.html> and Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever" [ER])
T 24 Fludernik, chapters 2 (excerpt) and 3 of Towards a 'Natural' Narratology [ER]; Fleischman, "The 'Labovian Model' Revisited..." [ER]; Fowler and Herman, "Linguistics and Literature" [ER]; supplemental reading: Herman, "Toward a Transmedial Narratology" [ER]
Th 26 Rimmon-Kenan, chapters 1-3; Toolan, chapter 2
March
T 2 Chapters 1, 2, and 3 in Onega and Landa (items by Barthes, Bremond, and Greimas)
Th 4 Rimmon-Kenan, chapters 4-7; Toolan, chapter 3 and 4
Spring Break
T 16 Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 in Onega and Landa (items by Sternberg, Bal, Ricoeur, and Booth)
Th 18 Rimmon-Kenan, chapters 8-11; Toolan, chapter 5 [Midterm essays due]
T 23 Lanser, "Toward a Feminist Narratology" [ER]; Rabinowitz, "Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences" [ER]; Margolin, "Of What Is Past..." [ER]
Th 25 Ryan, "The Modal Structure of Narrative Universes" [ER]; Dolezel, "Fictional and Historical Narrative" [ER]
T 30 Emmott, chapters 1, 4, and 5 of Narrative Comprehension [ER]; Herman, "Introduction" to Story Logic [ER]
April
Multimedia Narrative
Th 1 30 Ryan, chapter 7 of Narrative as Virtual Reality[ER]; Coverly, "Fibonacci's Daughter," available at <http://califia.hispeed.com/Fibonacci/choice.htm> [Abstracts due]
MONDAY, APRIL 5 (6:00 P.M.): Screening of David Lynch's Lost Highway in the "mini-theater" on the second floor of the west wing of D. H. Hill Library. (After entering the library, walk up to the main circulation desk, then turn left and walk past the reserve desk and current periodicals area. There will be a stairway leading to up to the mini-theater on the second floor.)
T 6 Ryan, "Cyberage Narratology" [ER]; Bordwell, chapters 3 and 4 of Narration in Fiction Film [ER]
Th 8 No class: university holiday
T 13 Chapters 14 and 15 in Onega and Landa (items by Deleyto and Branigan)
Th 15 No class: instructor out of town
A Brief Return to Foundational Issues in Narrative Analysis: Narrative, Knowledge, Identity
T 20 Lyotard, pages 18-41 of The Postmodern Condition [ER]; Davies and Harré, "Contradiction in Lived and Told Narratives" [ER]; supplemental reading: Bamberg, "Positioning between Structure and Performance" [ER]
Th 22 No class: instructor out of town
T 27 Polkinghorne, chapters 2 and 6 of Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences [ER]
Th 29 Colloquium on Narrative Analysis: Part I
May
T 4 Colloquium on Narrative Analysis: Part II (6:00 - 9:00 p.m.) [Final written projects due]
Academic Integrity Statement
From NC State's code for student conduct:
7.ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
7.1 The free exchange of ideas
depends on the participants' trust that they will be given credit for their
work. Everyone in an academic community must be responsible for acknowledging,
using the methods accepted by the various academic disciplines, their use
of others' words and ideas. Since intellectual workers' words and ideas
constitute a kind of property, plagiarism is like theft.
7.2 Furthermore, as a reader you
may want to follow other writers' paths of research in order to make your
own judgments about their evidence and arguments. You will depend on those
writers' accuracy and honesty in reporting their sources. In turn your
readers will depend on yours.
7.3 The free exchange of ideas
also depends on the participants' trust that others' work is their own
and that it was done and is being reported honestly. Intellectual progress
in all the disciplines demands the truthfulness of all participants.
7.4 Plagiarism and cheating are
attacks on the very foundation of academic life, and cannot be tolerated
within universities. Section eight (8) of the Code defines academic
dishonesty and provides information on potential sanctions for violators
of academic integrity.
NC State Policy on Working with Students with Disabilities
NC State is subject to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 provides that:
"No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States. . . shall, solely by reason of his handicap be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."
This regulation includes students with hearing, visual, motor, or learning disabilities and states that colleges and universities must make "reasonable adjustments" to ensure that academic requirements are not discriminatory. Modifications may require rescheduling classes from inaccessible to accessible buildings, providing access to auxiliary aids such as tape recorders, special lab equipment, or other services such as readers, note takers, or interpreters. It further requires that exams actually evaluate students' progress and achievement rather than reflect their impaired skills. This may require oral or taped tests, readers, scribes, separate testing rooms, or extension of time limits.
Section 84.47 (b) of the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare regulations implementing Section 504 deals in particular with academic
and vocational counseling. When advising disabled students, advisers should
be careful not to guide them, because of their handicap, toward a more
restrictive program or career than would be appropriate for a non-disabled
student. Factual information, such as licensing requirements, etc.,
that may present obstacles to disabled students should they decide to pursue
a particular career or program, may be presented in an objective fashion.