English 161: Narrative and Narrative TheoryFall 2014-15, M/W 11:00-12:30

Building 60, Room 120Professor Alex Woloch

Office: Room 307, Building 460Office Hours: Wed 1:00-3:00 and Friday 12:00-1:00Office Phone: 723-4594Email: woloch@stanford.edu

Course Description:

An introduction to stories and storytelling -- that is, to narrative. What is narrative? How is it done, word by word, sentence by sentence? Must it be in prose? Can it be in pictures? When is narrative fictional and when non-fictional? How has storytelling changed over time? We’ll consider these questions through a series of ambitious works that explore some of the limits, norms, assumptions and aesthetic possibilities of narrative. The course will cover a range of historical periods and a variety of media: novels, short fiction, film, the graphic novel. Issues include: point-of-view, chronology, ways of organizing (and disorganizing) plot, autobiography, first- and third-person narrative (and how they can be intertwined), unreliable narrators, hidden and nested stories, narrative and history, narrative and memory.

Texts

Daniel Defore, Robinson CrusoeJane Austen, EmmaHenry James, “The Beast in the Jungle” and “In the Cage”Herman Melville, Benito CerenoRoland Barthes, S/ZAkira Kurosawa, Rashomon (film)Sarah Polley, Stories We Tell (film)Art Spiegelman, Maus

Course Schedule

Section One: Novel and Narrative

Monday September 22: IntroductionWed September 24: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1-37)

Borges, “Funes Memorious” (coursework)

Mon Sept 29: Defoe, Crusoe (37-119) Wed Oct 1: Defoe, Crusoe (119-end)

Borges, “Borges and I” (coursework)

Monday Oct 6: Jane Austen, Emma (Volume 1)Wed Oct 8: Austen, Emma (Volume 2)

Monday Oct 13: Austen, Emma (Volume 3)Wed Oct 15: Sarah Polley, Stories We Tell (screening to be arranged)

Section Two: Experimental Narrative

Mon Oct 20: Henry James, “In the Cage”Wed Oct 22: Henry James, “Beast in the Jungle”

Mon Oct 27: Melville, Benito CerenoWed Oct 29: from Amaso Delano, “Narrative of Voyages and Travels, in the Northern

and Southern Hemispheres” (coursework)from Greg Grandin, Empire of Necessity (coursework)

Section Three: Theorizing Narrative

Mon Nov 3: Roland Barthes, S/ZWed Nov 5: Roland Barthes, S/Z

Section Four: Film/Graphic Novel

Mon Nov 10: IN-CLASS SCREENING: Akira Kurosawa, RashomonWed Nov 12: Kurosawa, Rashomon

from David Bordwell, Film Art: An Introduction (coursework)

Mon Nov 17: Art Spiegelman, Maus 1Wed Nov 19: Art Spiegelman, Maus 1

from Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (coursework)

Mon Nov 24/Wed Nov 26: THANKSGIVING BREAK

Mon Dec 1: ReviewWed Dec 3: In-class final

Course Requirements

1. Active Reading and Participation. Students are required to attend all lectures and discussion sections, to participate thoughtfully in the discussion, and to complete all reading assignments. (20% of grade)

2. Reading Responses. Each student should submit one brief reading response for each text (around 1 page single-spaced). These are designed to faciliate more rigorous reflection on the reading and active participation in weekly section discussions. In some cases, I might give specific parameters for the response. Generally, the response should

begin by focusing on a detail within the text that is particularly striking or intriguing to you: a single episode, scene or passage, an odd sentence, a telling choice of wording or phrasing, a character, a recurrent image, a syntactic pattern, etc. How does this detail relate to the larger narrative stakes at issue in the text as a whole? (20%)

3. Midterm Essay. A 5 page essay on one of the first texts in the course (Robinson Crusoe, Emma, Stories We Tell). Topics to be provided on Wed Oct 15 and essay due Wed Oct 22. (20%)

4. Final essay. A final 6-8 page essay focusing on one of the later texts in the course (Henry James stories, Benito Cereno, S/Z, Rashomon, Maus) or comparing two texts from the course. Topics to be provided on Monday Dec 1 and essay due Monday Dec 8. (20%)

5. Final exam. A final in-class exam will have two parts: brief I.D.s, based on terms from the course and the readings; discussion and analysis of selected passages. (20%)

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