Theories of Narrative
In this class we will consider a range of critical perspectives on narrative. In addition to applying critical theories to a diverse selection of literary texts, we will endeavor to understand these literary texts as potentially offering theories of narrative of their own. The class will concentrate on three novels: Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water, and Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse. We'll also test out critical readings on narrative excerpts dating from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century.

Critics and narrative theorists may include Henry James, Virginia Woolf, M. M. Bakhtin, Walter Benjamin, Gyorgy Lukacs, F. K. Stanzel, Roland Barthes, Gerard Genette, Wayne Booth, Susan Sontag, Robyn Warhol, Martha Nussbaum, Homi Bhabha, Monika Fludernik, and Rita Felski.

Assessment will be based on an annotated bibliography and three short papers, one of which will be revised into a final 6–10 page essay.