Web address for this syllabus:  http://www4.ncsu.edu/~dherman/Eng539.html

Course Description:

Welcome!  In this course, drawing on some of the world's best known and most inventive narrative fictions, we will explore what stories are and how they work.  At the same time, using these literary works as "tutor texts," the class will provide an overview of key concepts from a variety of theoretical approaches to narrative, including structuralist, rhetorical, feminist, historiographical, social-constructionist, and cognitive approaches.  Questions to be addressed include the following:  What distinguishes narratives from other text-types (arguments, recipes, ritualized exchanges of insults, etc.)?  What distinguishes fictional narratives from nonfictional narratives?  To what extent have basic techniques of fictional narrative-temporal sequencing, characterization, perspective-taking, representation of fictional spaces, and so on-evolved over time, and to what extent do those techniques vary across different literary and cultural traditions?  In what ways are these same fictional techniques interinvolved with broader questions about the nature of identity, the knowability of the past, the relation of language to the world, and the use of stories as a "cognitive artifact"-i.e., a practical resource for understanding and managing complexities in our everyday lives?

Texts:

Fictions:

Theoretical Works:

+ Readings available on electronic reserve (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/rbr/index.html).  Type in English 539, section 003, or use my last name and English 539 as descriptors.  All course materials on electronic reserve are marked "[ER]" on the class schedule below. You will need to download and install Adobe Reader (www.adobe.com), if you haven't done so already, to read the materials on reserve.

Requirements:

1.  Active class participation.
2.  Brief oral presentations.  Presentations should be 10-15 minutes in length; everyone will give two reports over the course of the semester.  Presentations should use our tutor-texts to explore the problems as well as the potentials of the models for understanding narrative that we will be studying.  Short handouts outlining the main points of your presentation and/or listing key quotations can be effective communicative tools.
    What aspects of the tutor-text does the theory help illuminate?  Conversely, how did analyzing the text impact your understanding of the theory you used?  You may very well wish to discuss the same tutor-text in both of your presentations, as well in your midterm paper (see item 3 below) and in your final research project (items 5 and 6).
3.  A short (3-5 page) midterm paper, due Thursday, September 27.  This paper should explore one of our tutor-texts from the perspective of a theoretical framework that you do not discuss in your two in-class presentations.
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.  Abstracts are due Thursday, November 8.
5.  A 15-minute (= approximately 8-page) conference paper for oral presentation at The NC State Colloquium on Narrative Theory and Narrative Fiction (all submissions guaranteed acceptance).  The Colloquium will be held during the final week of the term.  Nothing written needs to be handed in when you give your presentation, but again short handouts can be effective communicative tools.
6.  A longer, written version of item 5, ca. 20 pages.  The paper is to be turned in on by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 11.

Components of Grade:

In-class presentations =  20%
Midterm paper = 20%
Abstract = 10%
Oral presentation at colloquium = 20%
Long paper = 20%
Class participation = 10%

Class Schedule:

August

T 21  Introduction

H 23  Fiction:  The Golden Ass; theory:  Bruner, "The Narrative Construction of Reality" [ER]

Structuralist Narratology and Its Legacies

H 30  Fiction:  The Golden Ass; theory:  Greimas, "Reflections on Actantial Models," and Barthes, "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives," both in O & L

September

T 4  Fiction:  Beowulf; theory:  Rimmon-Kenan, chapters 1 - 5

H 6  Fiction:  Beowulf; theory:  Rimmon-Kenan, chapters 6 - 10

T 11  Fiction:  The Princess of Clèves; theory:  Bremond, "The Logic of Narrative Possibilities," in O & L

H 13  Fiction:  The Princess of Clèves; theory:  Ricoeur, "The Time of the Narrating (Erzählzeit) and Narrated Time (Erzählte Zeit)," and Stanzel, "A New Approach to the Definition of the Narrative Situations," both in O & L

T 18  Fiction:  The Princess of Clèves; theory:  Genette, "Voice," and Prince, "Introduction to the Study of the Narratee," both in O & L

Linguistic and Cognitive Approaches

H 20  Fiction:  Jacques the Fatalist; theory:  Ryan, "On the Modal Structure of Narrative Universes" [ER]

T 25  Fiction:  Jacques the Fatalist; theory:  Margolin, "Of What Is Past, Is Passing, or  to Come:  Temporality, Aspectuality, Modality, and the Nature of Literary Narrative" [ER]

H 27  Fiction:  Jacques the Fatalist; theory:  Jahn, "Frames, Preferences, and the Reading of Third-Person Narratives:  Towards a Cognitive Narratology" [ER]; SHORT MIDTERM ESSAY DUE

October

T 2  Fiction:  Wuthering Heights; theory:  Mary Galbraith, "Deictic Shift Theory and the Poetics of Involvement in Narrative" [ER]

H 4  Fiction:  Wuthering Heights; theory:  Emmott, Narrative Comprehension, chapters 1, 4, 5 [ER]

T 9  Fiction:  Wuthering Heights; theory:  Herman, Story Logic, "Introduction" and chapter 7 [ER]

H 11  Fiction:  Madame Bovary; theory:  Leech and Short, Style in Fiction, chapters 5 and 6 [ER]

T 16  Fall Break

Rhetorical Models

H 18  Fiction:  Madame Bovary; theory:  Rabinowitz, "Truth in Fiction:  A Reexamination of Audiences" [ER]

T 23  Fiction:  Madame Bovary; theory:  Phelan, "Functions of Character" [ER]

Poststructuralist, Psychoanalytic, and Feminist Perspectives

H 25  Fiction:  "The Metamorphosis"; theory:  Culler, "Fabula and Sjuzhet in the Analysis of Narrative:  Some American Discussions," in O & L

T 30  Fiction:  "The Metamorphosis"; theory:  Brooks, "Reading for the Plot," in O & L

November

H 1  Fiction:  Orlando; theory:  Lanser, "Towards a Feminist Narratology" [ER]

T 6  Fiction:  Orlando; theory:  Dolezel, "Fictional and Historical Narrative" [ER]

H 8  Fiction:  Orlando; theory:  Miller, "Line," in O & L; ABSTRACTS DUE

T 13  Fiction:  Borges, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," "The Garden of Forking Paths," "The Library of Babel" ; theory:  Hutcheon, "Modes and Forms of Narrative Narcissism," in O & L

H 15  Fiction:  Borges, "The Circular Ruins," "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote," "Funes, the Memorious"; theory:  Gibson, Towards a Postmodern Theory of Narrative, "Introduction" [ER]

T 20  Fiction:  Borges, "Theme of the Traitor and Hero," "Death and the Compass," "The Secret Miracle," "The Sect of the Phoenix"; theory:  Gibson, Towards a Postmodern Theory of Narrative, chapter 1 [ER]

H 22  Thanksgiving

Hypertext Narrative

T 27  Fiction:  "Fibonacci's Daughter"; theory:  Landow, Hypertext 2.0, chapter 1 [ER] and Ryan, Narrative as Virtual Reality, "Introduction" [ER]

H 29  Fiction:  "Fibonacci's Daughter"; theory:  Ryan, Narrative as Virtual Reality, chapter 7 [ER]

December

Colloquium on Narrative Theory and Narrative Fiction

T 4  Presentations

H 6  Presentations

Final Projects Due:  Tuesday, December 11, 5:00 p.m.