10916 Narrative: A Multidisciplinary Perspective 1

Credits: 6 advanced credits in Comparative Literature

Prerequisites: 36 credits in Literature, including Poetics of Narrative Fiction. Students must also fulfill all English requirements and take bibliographic instruction in the Library.

Author: Nilli Diengott

Narrative as a concept has long since ceased to be considered only a part of narrative poetics and has migrated to other disciplines.

This multidisciplinary course examines the transformation of the concept – against the background of structuralist narratology as discussed in Poetics of Narrative Fiction – in four disciplines: legal studies, historiography, discourse psychology and post-classical narratology (Monika Fludernik). Through a close, critical reading of 16 theoretical articles, the course follows the meaning and use made of the concept. The approach taken is descriptive in the main, yet in each discipline articles are included that present challenges to the expansive meaning and use of the concept in the specific discipline.

Chapters: (1) Introduction; (2) Narrative and legal studies; (3) Narrative and historiography; (4) Narrative and discourse psychology; (5) Narrative and post-classical narratology.

Each of the chapters includes appendices that explain the background and conceptual frameworks necessary to understand terms and concepts in the articles.

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1Students may write a seminar paper in this course, although it is not required.