Time and Narrative

Catalog description

This course studies fiction that experiments with the representation of time alongside philosophical and critical texts on the theory of time. We will consider how engagements with the question of time shape the structures, language, characters, plots, themes, and goals of narrative, looking at topics such as time and language, story and narration, memory and history. We will also consider the impact of technological and social developments on the sense of time (the wristwatch, the telegraph, railway timetables). Authors include St. Augustine, Laurence Sterne, John Locke, David Hume, Ambrose Bierce, Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Virginia Woolf. Enrollment limited.