DRAFT – Changes may be made to final syllabus
English 161 – Fall 2015
Narrative and Narrative Theory
Paula Moya
Margaret Jacks Hall 331
pmoya@stanford.edu
Ofc. hours TBD and by appt.
Email ahead to ensure availability
J.D. Porter
jdporter@stanford.edu
Ofc. hours: M 1:00-2:30 p.m. and by appt.
Email ahead to ensure availability
Course meets TTh 10:30 a.m. – 11:50 a.m. in 200-034
with additional section
COURSE DESCRIPTION
What is narrative? How do words turn into sentences, and sentences into stories? How
do words evoke visual images? How does time work in different types of narrative?
How does syntax affect meaning? How and why do we come to identify with, or
despise, fictional characters? How have the formal features of different kinds of
narratives changed over time? In this course, we will address all these questions as we
consider the various forms, genres, structures, and characteristics of narrative.
MATERIALS
Primary
Russian Folktale, “Marya Morevna”
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home, Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0618871711
Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters, Random House, ISBN 0679740767
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Penguin, ISBN 0141439564
Jennifer Egan, “Black Box,” CR
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, W.W. Norton, ISBN 0393964817
Salvador Plascencia, People of Paper, Harcourt, ISBN 0156032112
Secondary
Monika Fludernik, An Introduction to Narratology, Routledge, ISBN 0415450306
Vladímir Propp, Morphology of a Folktale, ISBN 0292783760
DRAFT – Changes may be made to final syllabus
Selections from Mikhail Bahktin, Mieke Bal, Roland Barthes, Peter Brooks, Umberto
Eco, Frank Kelleter, J. Hillis Miller, Ramón Saldívar, Charles Schulz, Emily Steinlight,
Tzvetan Todorov, and Alex Woloch.
Note on Books: We will be looking closely at passages in each text. It is important that
you have the edition listed above for each book and that you bring it to class for each
session. Selected essays will be posted on Coursework. The Fludernik is optional;
readings from this text will also be available on Coursework.
SCHEDULE
Week 1
Readings
Brooks, “Reading for the Plot,” Sections I & II, pp. 3-23
Todorov, “The Origin of Genres,” pp. 13-26
What is
Narrative?
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, “All Kinds of Fur”
Background reading:
Fludernik, “Narrative and Narrating” and “The Structure
of Narrative,” pp. 1-7, 21-39
Topics
Week 2
Readings
General introduction to the topic;
basic vocabulary; course structure
Thu, Sep 24
Basics of genre and plot
Propp, Morphology of a Folktale
Russian Folktale, “Marya Morevna”
Fairytale as
Genre
Background reading:
Marchetti, “Action-Adventure as Ideology”
Tue, Sep 29
Morphology of a fairytale
Thu, Oct 1
“Marya Morevna” as Ideology
Assignments
Tue, Sep 29
Fairy tale assignment handed out
in class. Due on Saturday, October
10 at 5:00 p.m.
Readings
Dickens, Great Expectations
Topics
Week 3
Tue, Sep 22
Woloch, “Characterization and Distribution,” pp. 12-42
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DRAFT – Changes may be made to final syllabus
Background reading:
Stylistics and
Characterization
Fludernik, “The Surface of Narrative,” “Language, the
Representation of Speech and the Stylistics of Narrative,”
pp. 40-52, 64-77
Topics
Week 4
Readings
Tue, Oct 6
Opening of Great Expectations
Thu, Oct 8
Characterization
Dickens, Great Expectations
Steinlight, “‘Anti-Bleak House’: Advertising and the
Victorian Novel,” pp. 132-141, 145-149, 156-57
Serialization,
Beginnings
and Endings
Miller, “The Problematic of Ending in Narrative,” pp. 3-7
Background reading:
Kelleter, “The Wire and Its Readers”
Topics
Week 5
Readings
Tue, Oct 13
Partitions—scene, sequence,
fragment, segment, section,
chapter, part and book
Thu, Oct 15
Guest lecture by Sara Hackenberg
on serialization
Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Bal, “Focalization,” pp. 142-153
Focalization
and
Narration
Background reading:
Fludernik, “Thoughts, Feelings, and the Unconscious,”
pp. 78-87
Topics
Assignments
Tue, Oct 20
The basics of focalization
Thu, Oct 22
Focalization as a function of
characterization
Thu, Oct 22
Faux Faulkner assignment handed
out in class. Due on Saturday,
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October 31 at 5:00 p.m.
Week 6
Focalization
and
Narration,
cont.
Week 7
Readings
Background reading:
Reed, “[Narrative Technique in] The Sound and the Fury,”
pp. 352-360.
Topics
Readings
Tue, Oct 27
Unreliable and stream-ofconsciousness narration
Thu, Oct 29
Digital methods for detecting and
representing narrative
Bambara, The Salt Eaters
Fludernik, “Time” pp. 32-35
Space/Time
in the Novel
Bahktin, “Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel,”
esp. pp. 84-92, 97-101, 111, 115-137, 146-151
Topics
Week 8
Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Readings
Tue, Nov 3
The novel in its historical and
cultural contexts
Thu, Nov 5
Space/time in the novel
Bambara, The Salt Eaters
Egan, “Great Rock and Roll Pauses, by Allison Blake,”
available at http://jenniferegan.com/books, A Visit From
the Goon Squad
Space/Time
in the Novel
Egan, “Black Box”
New Media
Topics
Assignments
Tue, Nov 10
Chronotopic motifs and metaphors
Thu, Nov 12
New media and narrative structure
Thu, Nov 12
New media assignment handed
out in class. Due on Sunday,
November 29 at 5:00 p.m.
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DRAFT – Changes may be made to final syllabus
Week 9
Readings
Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts (selections)
Graphic
Narrative
Background reading:
Umberto Eco, “The Myth of Superman”
Topics
Week 10
Bechdel, Fun Home
Tue, Nov 17
Visual narration
Thu, Nov 19
Iterative narrative
Thanksgiving Break
Enjoy!
Week 11
Readings
Plascencia, The People of Paper
Saldívar, “Historical Fantasy, Speculative Realism, and
Postrace Aesthetics in Contemporary American Fiction”
Metafiction
Background reading:
Fludernik, “Fictionality”; “Metafiction and Metanarration”
pp. 58-63.
Topics
Tue, Dec 1
Metafictionality
Thu, Dec 3
Sentiment and critique
COURSE PROCEDURES AND POLICIES
Reading: The success of this course depends upon each student having completed the
reading by the time it is discussed. Most novels will be treated in segments so that the
entire text need not be read by the first day, though clearly this is a desirable goal. The
secondary critical material will be similarly divided up over the two-day weekly
schedule so that you can more easily spread your reading across several days.
Papers: Rather than being required to write standard academic essays, you will
demonstrate your understanding of the theories and concepts presented in this course
via class discussions and creative projects. No late papers will be accepted except in
exceptional circumstances and only if permission is sought and granted well ahead of
time.
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DRAFT – Changes may be made to final syllabus
For the first paper, you will use Propp as a guide to write a short fairytale using
material drawn from your everyday life. You will accompany your short fairy tale with
a short analysis relating your fairytale to Propp’s model.
For the second paper, you will draw on what you have learned about style and
focalization to write a scene, in the style of Faulkner, from The Sound and the Fury from
the perspective of Caddy, Miss Quentin, or Dilsey. You will accompany your scene with
an analysis explaining your stylistic and narrative choices.
For the third assignment, you will be asked to work with a partner and write an
analysis of Jennifer Egan’s short story “Black Box” in tweets.
Two Literary/Scholarly Events: You are asked to attend two literary events this quarter
organized through the English Department, the DLCL, or the Creative Writing
Program, in response to which you are required to post a brief (approx. 250-300) word
review on the Forum. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, colloquia and academic lectures and
presentations are acceptable venues. Responses must be posted within a week of the
event, and no later than December 11, 2015.
A Note on Sources: Your analyses in this course should be based on your ideas about the
assigned reading, including the texts on narrative theory. Some of the assigned volumes
have introductions and commentary for you to use. Please focus on these materials. If
you use books, articles, internet sources, or rely on work by other students, you must,
by Stanford policy, specifically indicate your indebtedness by citing them.
Attendance and Discussion: Attendance and active participation in discussion during
lecture and section is a part of the required work without which you cannot successfully
complete the course. In lieu of a final exam, there will be several short, in-or out-ofclass, writing assignments over the course of the quarter that you will be asked to hand
in during lecture or section. Please prepare yourself by bringing pen and paper,
together with your course materials, to class. If you must miss a class or section, we
expect you will make arrangements beforehand. If you do not make such arrangements,
your grade will be adversely affected.
Office Hours: I would welcome the opportunity to talk to you about questions and
issues that arise for you in connection with the class. Please email me ahead of time to
make sure that I have space available during my regular office hours.
Grading:
Lecture attendance and participation
Section grade
Fairy tale and analysis
Faux Faulkner scene
New media group work
Literary/Scholarly events
6
15%
20%
20%
20%
15%
10%
DRAFT – Changes may be made to final syllabus
Students with Documented Disabilities: Students who may need an academic
accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the
Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) located within the Office of Accessible
Education (OAE). SDRC staff will evaluate the request with required documentation,
recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for
faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should
contact the SDRC as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate
accommodations.
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