Narratology and Narrative Theory

Fall 1999
Instructor:  David Herman
Tompkins 230
Phone:  919.515.4150
E-mail:  dherman@unity.ncsu.edu
Homepage:  http://www4.ncsu.edu/~dherman

Description:

Over the past couple of decades, "narrative," a multifaceted object of inquiry, has moved to the forefront of research in the humanistic and social-scientific disciplines.  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.  Accordingly, this course is designed to have broad-based appeal for graduate students interested in linguistics, cognitive and computer science, film, design, and rhetoric as well as those specializing in literature and literary theory.  The course aims to shed light on narrative as a cognitive style and discourse genre as much as a resource for literary writing.
 The course will acquaint students with basic concepts and methods used in the analysis of stories.  We begin with Aristotle, move through relatively early literary-critical approaches to narrative, turn then to work in the traditions of structuralist narratology and sociolinguistics, and conclude with a focus on more recent developments in narrative theory, including rhetorical approaches, feminist approaches, cognitive-scientific approaches, ethical approaches, and film-theoretical approaches.  Class meetings will intermix lecture and discussion and will use the assigned readings to highlight such topics as the fundamental ingredients of stories; the way strings of events can be built into narrative sequences; theories about characters or narrative agents; the concept of "audience" in narrative analysis; narratives' use of dialogue and reported speech; representations of space and time in stories; and the relationship between narrative and fictionality.  You will be asked to work with different kinds of narratives, both literary (Henry James' The Turn of the Screw has been selected as a sample text) and non-literary (e.g., stories told in conversational contexts or during interviews, as well as films, comic books or strips, episodes of television shows, hypertexts or interactive fictions, etc.).  Students will use stories of these sorts as practice texts in connection with the various theories studied.
 Requirements include two oral presentations; two short essays in which students draw on the assigned readings to analyze a narrative; and a final research paper, an oral version of which will be presented as part of a colloquium on Narratology and Narrative Theory held at the end of the term.

Syllabus:

English 586.001
Narratology and Narrative Theory
Fall 1999, MW 6:00 - 7:15
Instructor:  David Herman
Tompkins 230
Office hours:  MWF 3:45 - 5:00; H 3:00 - 5:00;
 and by appointment
Phone:  515.4150
E-mail:  dherman@unity.ncsu.edu

Texts:
 

  • David Herman (ed.), Narratologies: New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis.  OSU Press, 1999.  (Abbreviated as Narratologies on syllabus)
  • Henry James, The Turn of the Screw.  Bedford Books (St. Martin's Press), 1995.
  • Wallace Martin, Recent Theories of Narrative.  Cornell U Press, 1986.  (Abbreviated as  "Martin" on syllabus)
  • Susana Onega and José Ángel García Landes, Narratology:  An Introduction.  Longman,  1996. (Abbreviated as "Onega" on syllabus)
  • Gerald Prince, A Dictionary of Narratology.  U of Nebraska Press, 1987.
  • Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction:  Contemporary Poetics.  Routledge, 1989 [1983].

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    + Materials on Electronic Reserve at D.H. Hill Library (N.B.  All readings on electronic reserve are marked "ER" on the syllabus.  Click here for a list of the items to be placed on reserve for the course.)

    Requirements:

    1.  Brief oral presentations.  Each student will give two 10-15 minute oral presentations over the course of the semester.  (Auditors will please give one such presentation.)  Presentations should focus on how the theoretical models outlined in assigned readings might be used in connection with specific narratives.  Anchoring your presentation in a sample narrative, try to highlight the problems as well as the potentials of the models--i.e., both what they do and do not help explain about the narrative under examination.  Sample narratives can be conversational narratives that you record yourself using taperecording equipment available through the William C. Friday Linguistics Lab (T 204); narratives recorded on preexisting tapes available in the lab; or written narratives, whether literary, cinematic, journalistic, or other.
    2.  Two short papers (3-5 pages) in which you apply the models discussed in class to a sample narrative of the sort specified in item number 1 above.  Your papers should focus on two theoretical models that you did not discuss in your oral presentations.  However, you may wish to develop/expand one (or both) of your short papers into the final research project due at the end of the term.  The first short paper is due Monday, September 20; the second, Monday, October 25
    3. A 250-word abstract corresponding to items 4 and 5 (only one abstract required).  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 Monday, November 8.
    4.  A 15-minute (= approximately 8-page) conference paper for oral delivery at THE NCSU COLLOQUIUM ON NARRATOLOGY AND NARRATIVE THEORY (all submissions guaranteed acceptance).  The colloquium will be held during the final three class meetings.
    5.  A longer (15-20 page) written version of item 4.  The paper is to be turned in on Monday, December 6.  You need not hand in the shorter version of the paper that you present at the colloquium.

    Grade:

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

    August

    M 16  Introduction:  What is narratology and why worry about it anyway?

    Early formulations; synoptic presentations

    W 18  Readings:  Aristotle, selections from Poetics (ER); James, "The Art of Fiction" (ER); Lubbock, selections from The Craft of Fiction (ER); Booth, "Types of Narration," in Onega

    M 23  Readings:  Martin, chapters 1-4; Bruner, "The Narrative Construction of Reality" (ER); White, "The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality," in Onega

    Structuralist narratology and its legacies

    W 25  Readings:  Prince, "Narratology" (ER); Lodge, "Analysis and Interpretation of the Realist Text" (ER); Herman, "Introduction" (pp. 1-14), in Narratologies

    M 30  Readings:  Barthes, "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives," in Onega; Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction, pp. 1-70

    September

    W 1  Readings:  Bremond, "The Logic of Narrative Possibilities," in Onega; Greimas, "Reflections on Actantial Models," in Onega; Herman, "Existentialist Roots of  Narrative Actants" (ER)

    M 6  Labor Day (no class)

    W 8  Readings:  Culler, "Fabula and Sjuzhet in the Analysis of Narrative," in Onega; Ricoeur, "The Time of Narrating (Erzählzeit) and Narrated Time (Erzählte Zeit)," in  Onega; Kafalenos, "Not (Yet) Knowing," in Narratologies

    M 13  Readings:  Martin, chapters 5 and 6; Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction, pp. 71-132

    W 15  Readings (all in Onega):  Bal, "Focalization"; Stanzel, "A New Approach to the Definition of the Narrative Situations"; Martin, chapter 7

    M 20  Readings (both in Onega):  Genette, "Voice"; Prince, "Introduction to the Study of  the Narratee"; FIRST SHORT PAPER DUE

    Linguistic, sociolinguistic, and cognitive approaches

    W 22  Readings:  Rimmon-Kenan, "How the Model Neglects the Medium" (ER); Labov, "The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax" (ER)

    M 27  Readings:  Herman, "Towards a Socionarratology," in Narratologies; Chapters 5 and 6 of Leech and Short, Style in Fiction (ER)

    W 29  Readings:  Ryan, "On the Modal Structure of Narrative Universes" (ER)

    October

    M 4  Readings:  Galbraith, "Deictic Shift Theory and the Poetics of Involvement in  Narrative" (ER); Jahn, "Frames, Preferences, and the Reading of Third-Person  Narratives" (ER)

    W 6  Readings (both in Narratologies):  Margolin, "Of What Is Passing, Is Past, or to  Come"; Jahn, "'Speak, friend, and enter'"

    M 11  Fall Break (no class)

    Feminist, rhetorical, and film-theoretical approaches

    W 13  Readings:  Lanser, "Towards a Feminist Narratology" (ER); Warhol, "Guilty Cravings," in Narratologies

    M 18  Readings:  Young, "Narratives of Indeterminacy," in Narratologies; Rabinowitz, "Truth in Fiction" (ER); Phelan, "Functions of Character" (ER)

    W 20  Readings:  Phelan and Martin, "The Lessons of 'Weymouth,'" in Narratologies;  Deleyto, "Focalisation in Film Narrative," in Onega

    M 25  Readings:  Branigan, "Story World and Screen," in Onega; Chatman, "New Directions in Voice-Narrated Cinema," in Narratologies; SECOND SHORT  PAPER DUE

    Poststructuralist, postmodern, and psychoanalytic perspectives

    W 27  Readings:  Martin, chapter 8; Hutcheon, "Modes and Forms of Narrative  Narcissism," in Onega

    November

    M 1  Readings (all in Onega):  Brooks, "Reading for the Plot"; de Lauretis, "Desire in  Narrative"; Hillis Miller, "Line"

    W 3  Readings:  Andrew Gibson, "Introduction" and chapter 1, Towards a Postmodern  Theory of Narrative (ER); Derrida, "Force and Signification" (ER)

    M 8  Readings (both in Narratologies):  Dolezel, "Fictional and Historical Narrative"; Morson, "Essential Narrative"

    Narrative in an age of electronic revolution

    W 10  Readings:  Ryan, "Cyberage Narratology," in Narratologies; Aarseth, selections  from Cybertext (ER)

    M 15  Readings:  Murray, chapters 4, 5, and 6 of Hamlet on the Holodeck (ER)

    W 17  Catching up; review

    M 22  Colloquium presentations

    W 24  No class

    M 29  Colloquium presentations

    December

    W 1  Colloquium presentations

    Final papers due Monday, December 6, at 5:00 p.m.
     

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