ENGL 30014 - Sem Lit/Cul St: Narrating Our Pasts

Course Credit: 1
(CMLT)
SEMINAR IN LITERARY AND CULTURE STUDIES: NARRATING OUR PASTS The research seminar investigates narrative as a way of knowing by exploring twentieth- and twenty-first century fictional representations of the past in relation to the conventions of storytelling and assumptions about fiction and nonfiction. Focusing on novels that represent contested historical events, we examine how narrative both makes sense of our perceptions of the world and shapes those perceptions, including how experience and identities may become indistinguishable from story. Possible texts include William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!, Toni Morrison, Beloved, Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer, Tim O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods, Philip Roth, The Plot Against America, and D. M. Thomas, The White Hotel, as well as readings in narrative theory. Prerequisite(s): ENGL-20000, and at least 2 Literature courses [AH]