ENGL 695 A 1: Time, Narrative, and Historiography

K. Ball

This course will provide an introduction to narratology and the literary critique of historiography through a range of theoretical texts that focus on how concepts of time, experience, memory, and history are poetically configured as narrative. Our discussions will explore psychoanalytic, hermeneutical, and rhetorical conceptions of history, memory, and narrative as modes of signifying the past as well as the issues that render the past’s constitution as a referent of collective memory and narrative historiography socioculturally and politically contingent. Our aims are to compare theories of time, memory, and history that have shaped recent developments in literary and cultural studies and to evaluate the relevance of these theories for specific projects relating to autobiographical, national, and postcolonial narratives. By creating opportunities to bridge canonical and recent texts, the seminar will also provide crucial background for advanced work in narratology and memory politics.