Theorizing Narrative Forms

Catalog description

We all tell stories; we read, listen to, and watch them. Yet, as Jerome Bruner has remarked, we can also find ourselves struggling to define what constitutes a story: what differentiates it from an argument, a recipe, a listicle? It may be, as Bruner suggests, that our sense of narrative is so naturalized or intuitive that it is hard to explain. It may also be that the word “narrative” has come to be used in so many different contexts and disciplines that getting a grip on it presents a challenge. Luckily, there are an array of analytic and critical tools available, through which we can learn to understand, analyze, and explore narrative forms with precision and clarity. In this course, we will familiarize ourselves with the fundamentals of narrative theory; by examining examples from literature and media, we will deepen our understanding of how stories work and what cultural work they can perform. Joan Didion once wrote that “we tell ourselves stories in order to live.” In the second half of this course, we’ll complicate this claim. Whose stories get told and how and why? Are there particular forms of storytelling that come to be privileged over others? What are they and what is the source of that privilege? What role do narratives have in the construction of identity and history? Readings will include theoretical texts—Aristotle, Bruner, Puckett, S.Hartman, e.g.—alongside a diverse array of literary texts, which may include Melville, Woolf, Prince, Danticat, Achebe, and others.