GERM 7700 Narrative Theory  (Martens)  T Th 2:00-3:15

The purpose of the course is to introduce the most important works of narrative theory that shape current theoretical debate and critical practice.  The first half of the course will focus on "classical" narrative theory, i.e., the body of theory that laid the foundations of narratology and supplied terminology that is still in use (“unreliable narrator,” “implied author,” “story/discourse,” “focalization,” “diegesis,” etc.), to include Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction; Franz Stanzel, Typische Formen des Romans; Roland Barthes, S/Z; Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse; Dorrit Cohn, Transparent Minds. But we will also look at some earlier narrative theory that has remained influential, such as Benjamin,"The Storyteller" and M.M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, as well as at Felman’s  psychoanalytic account of reader response in “Turning the Screw of Interpretation.” The latter part of the course will focus on some of the principal directions in post-classical narrative theory:  feminist narratology, possible worlds theory, cognitive narratology, and “unnatural narratology.”  These newer directions address such issues as gender in narration, narrative in different media, empirical reader response, and postmodernist narrative practices. Authors here include Susan Lanser, Lubomir Doložel, Marie-Laure Ryan, Monika Fludernik, Marisa Bortolussi and Peter Dixon, Uri Margolin, Alan Palmer, David Herman, Jan Alber, and Brian Richardson.  In addition, we will read some short fictional works that play a central role in the theories, such as, for example, Henry James, The Turn of the Screw.    

Requirements:  an oral presentation on one of the readings and a final examination.  For graduate students from outside the German Department, no knowledge of German is necessary.