NARRATIVE AND MEMORY: INTRO TO FICTION ENGL 10705 AUTUMN QUARTER 2013 TUES, THURS 12:00 1:20 HARPER

PER LIBRARY 145 PROFESSOR SONALI THAKKAR OFFICE HOURS: THURS 3:00 4:30 ROSENWALD 415C sonalit@uchicago.edu OSCAR CHAVEZ, TEACHING INTERN OFFICE HOURS: TUES 10:00 11:30 EX LIBRIS, REGENSTEIN LIBRARY ochavez@uchicago.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION In this course, we will study narrative form and key concepts in narrative theory by examining how prose fiction and related narrative genres contend with the workings of memory. This course takes as its starting point the idea that narrative is closely tied to temporality and to representing the world in time. Not only does narrative represent temporal duration but also we as readers experience narrativesthe sequence of scenes and episodes, the unfolding of dialogue, and the arc of a plotin ways that are deeply time-bound. As such, the time of reading and the temporality of the text bear a relationship to one another that is usually asynchronous. Most importantly, the accretion of meaning that is such a persistent characteristic of narrative form depends on the relationship between a texts parts (for instance, its beginning, middle, and end, when we can determine them) but also on the connection between the past, present, and future of those individuals and life worlds that exist within the texts representational or fictional frame. Memory is crucial to the way that people situate themselves in time, and thus to narrative. We will examine how a series of 20th century and contemporary works of fiction, film, and historical testimony represent memorys persistence as well as its changeability. The strategies authors develop to represent memory, both in the sense of a capacity of consciousness and as that which one remembers, suggest a great deal about the flexibility and the limitations of narrative form. We will pay particular attention to works that reflect on the elusiveness of the past and on failures or disruptions of acts of recall in order to ask how such moments put pressure on readerly expectations of continuity and chronology, and on formal norms of unity and coherence. In considering narrative as a broad category, we will also ask about its specific relationship to fiction as a mode of literary production, and if and how prose fiction differs from other types of narrative, such as oral and written histories, film, the graphic novel, and memoir. READINGS Please get ahold of the books below, in the editions I have specified so that we have the same pagination. Books are available at the Seminary Coop Bookstore (5751 S. Woodland Ave.). Some additional short readings will be available on Chalk, under Course Documents. Martin Amis, Times Arrow (Vintage, ISBN: 9780679735724) Octavia Butler, Kindred (Beacon, ISBN: 9780807083697)

Narrative and Memory 2

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (Vintage, ISBN: 9780679731726) Anton Shammas, Arabesques (University of California, ISBN: 9780520228320) Art Spiegelman, Maus, Volume One: A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Pantheon, ISBN: 9780394747231) Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (Harcourt, ISBN: 9780156030359) COURSE ASSIGNMENTS Glossary (10%) Together, we will produce a glossary of key terms that will be useful to us in talking and writing about narrative form. At our second class, I will circulate a list of these terms and each of you will pick one term for which you will produce the glossary entry. These entries should be approximately 350 words longs, and we will post them to a page on the class blog, http://narrativeandmemory.wordpress.com, where they will serve as a collective resource for the class. Your glossary entry should not restate material from Wikipedia or from other unverified sources. Instead, you will provide a definition in your own words after consulting two-three sources; we will discuss in class what sorts of library materials and electronic resources you might consult. Your entry should also offer two examples from narrative works. These narrative works do not need to be from the courses reading list but you do need to cite them as part of your entry. This assignment will be an opportunity to discuss literary reference materials and how to find them as well as proper citation practices and avoiding plagiarism. The glossary, which we will complete by the end of Week 3, will also be a resource for your midterm emplotment assignment, blog posts, and final papers. Emplotment Assignment (25%) This midterm assignment, due at the end of Week 5, asks you to choose one among Times Arrow, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Remains of the Day in order to consider how these texts, which deal in complex ways with temporality, memory, and narrative sequence, are assembled and ordered. You will outline, in a diagram or other schematic form, the novels various parts, paying close attention to those places where the narrative voice shifts or where the sequence of events or the action of the novels plot diverges from the order in which they are narrated. In an accompanying three page reflection, you will describe what this textual outline or breakdown indicates about the novels narrative arc, and you will assess the interpretive effects and affective experience of the novels form: how does the narrative create doubt or suspense? What sort of knowledge does it make available to the reader, and when? What are the effects of offering or limiting information at one or another moment? Does the relationship of the novels parts or episodes provide continuity or does it disrupt expectations of linearity and coherence? Finally, you will consider how reordering the parts or movements of the text that you have identifiedin whatever fashion you choose to suggestmight change the impression of a works mood, substance, or import, as well as the experience of reading it. We will discuss the possible media and tools that you might use for the schematic component of this assignment, which could range from index cards to programs like Scapple and Prezi. If there is interest, we will hold an optional workshop to discuss some of the options and how to use them.

Narrative and Memory 3

Blog Posts (20%) You can find our class blog at http://narrativeandmemory.wordpress.com. Three times during the quarter, largely in Weeks 5-10, you will write a blog post of about 500 words. Our readings for this course are diverse, belonging to no one specific national literature or geographical region, linguistic tradition, or historical moment. The blog posts are an opportunity to think comparatively about our texts by making formal and conceptual connections between works. In each post, you will write about a pair of works. At our second class, I will circulate a signup sheet with dates and pairings. Posts are due by 3:00pm on your chosen Monday/Wednesday so that everyone has time to read them in advance of class discussion the following day. You will want to consider both the kinds of choices the works make about narrative form but also the similarities or differences between the two works treatment of memory. You might consider the following questions: What are one or two of each texts most distinctive or important formal characteristics? Do the works have formal aspects in common and, if so, do these shared aspects produce similar or disparate effects in the two works? How would you characterize the works posture towards memory? Is memory a source of continuity, either within an individual life or between generations? Does it provide the foundation of an individuals consciousness or identity, or does it undermine the unity of lives and persons? How do the formal characteristics of the works that you have identified register memorys rupture, loss, disavowal, recovery, etc.? Do you see a shared posture towards memory or common theory of memory in your two works, despite what you have identified as their formal differences? Final Paper (30%) Write a fiction or nonfiction prose piece of 7-9 pages using several of the formal strategies and narrative techniques that we have discussed in class. Your piece will likely take questions of time or memory as its explicit theme but this is not strictly necessary. Together with your prose piece, you will submit an analysis of 2-3 pages in which you discuss your formal and conceptual decisions: what effects are you trying to achieve and by what narratological means? How effective do you think these choices are? What might you do differently, either to achieve similar effects or to give your narrative a decidedly different tone, mood, or point of view? Class Participation (15%) Class participation is crucial to the success of this class. Meaningful participation depends on the following: Come to class prepared with questions and observations about specific aspects of the reading. Always bring the readings with you and be ready to direct us to a page or passage that you think is important for discussion. Read any new blog entries before each class and be prepared to discuss some of the issues that they raise. Raise new topics or issues for discussion while also being responsive to the comments and questions that others have introduced, so that we can generate sustained, in-depth discussion.

Narrative and Memory 4

COURSE POLICIES Attendance Attendance is mandatory. Missing more than two classes without documented cause will affect your final grade considerably. Repeated lateness will affect your participation grade; if you are more than twenty minutes late to class you will be counted as absent for that session. Electronic Devices You may not use electronic devices in class. Please keep phones off and out of sight. Readings are made available to you on Chalk, rather than in a photocopied reader, so that you can access them remotely and easily archive them after the end of the course. However, you are expected to print out and bring to class hardcopies of the readings: please no reading off of tablets and laptops. Attendance at Office Hours We encourage you to come often to office hours but we both expect to see you at least once in office hours for an individual meeting. You can come in to discuss your ideas for a paper, our feedback, or any other questions you might have about the course or the readings. SCHEDULE Week 1 10/1 Jorge Luis Borges, Funes, His Memory, in Collected Fictions, trans. Andrew Hurley (New York: Penguin, 1998), 131-137. Lydia Davis, Losing Memory, in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (New York: Picador, 2009), 379. 10/3 Act Up Oral History Project Videos, www.actuporalhistory.org (view in class) Hayden White, The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality, in Critical Inquiry 7:1 (Autumn 1980), 5-27.

Week 2 10/8 Martin Amis, Times Arrow (New York: Vintage, 1991) [read till p. 113]. 10/10 Amis cont. Week 3 10/ 15 Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (Orlando: Harvest/Harcourt, 2005) [read till p. 124]. 10/17 Woolf cont. 10/18 DEADLINE TO COMPLETE GLOSSARY ENTRY Week 4 10/22 Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (New York: Vintage, 1988) (read till p. 141) 10/24 Ishiguro cont.

Narrative and Memory 5

Week 5 10/29 Sigmund Freud, Screen Memories, in Sigmund Freud: Collected Papers, Vol. 5, ed. James Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 1959), 47-69. 10/30 Screening: Cach 10/31 Freud cont. Michael Haneke, dir. Cach (France, 2005). 11/1 DEADLINE TO COMPLETE EMPLOTMENT ASSIGNMENT Week 6 11/5 Haneke cont. 11/7 Anton Shammas, Arabesques, trans. Vivian Eden (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) [read till p. 110].

Week 7 11/12 Shammas cont. 11/14 Art Spiegelman, Maus Vol I: A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History (New York: Pantheon, 1986). Week 8 11/19 Spiegelman cont. 11/21 Octavia Butler, Kindred (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979) [read till p. 107]. Week 9 11/26 Butler, cont. 11/28 Thanksgiving break, no class. Week 10 12/3 Wrap Up 12/5 Reading Period, no class. 12/13 FINAL ASSIGNMENTS DUE