HNRS 397 HONORS COLLOQUIUM
NARRATIVE AND SELF-UNDERSTANDING:
INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE
Spring 2008
CLS 3-044
Thursdays 4:15 pm to 6:55 pm
Professor Gregory Holmes Singleton, Ph.D.
E-Mail-roc1940@sbcglobal.net
Telephone: (773)720-1040
Office Hours: By Appointment
Through millennia and over a wide variety of cultures, we have spent, and continue to spend, a considerable amount of intellectual energy in the quest for self-understanding as individuals, in various collectivities, and as a species. An important dimension of that quest—both our sources for understanding and the ways in which we express the understanding we have gained—is narrative. We listen to, read, tell, and write stories. Sometimes these narratives are simple attempts to summarize and recount experiences. Sometimes they are creative constructs meant to entertain us, engage our artistic imagination, illustrate a point, or all of the above. Sometimes the narratives are short jokes. Sometimes the narratives convey the result of years of research on a complex set of events involving thousands of people over a long period of time.
Whether they take the form of sacred texts or fairy tales, amusing anecdotes shared among friends or multi-volume histories of the African Diaspora or Civil War, cautionary graphic stories about the dangers of excessive drinking or parables conveying abstract general moral precepts, nineteenth-century Russian novels or pulp fiction, a Ron Howard movie or a thirty-minute episode of “Two-and-a-Half Men,” our lives are saturated with narratives, and they influence the ways in which we come to know and discuss the world in which we live.
Narrative is an important topic of discussion in a variety of academic disciplines, including (but not limited to) History, Literary Criticism, and Philosophy. We will engage those discussions in this course as we explore this important element of human existence. More specifically, this colloquium is an exploration of the nature, structures, forms and functions of narrative. The story of this course will begin with the first class session. The instructor will provide the first chapter. From that point on, we cooperate in the construction of the story of our intellectual quest.
We will share a common set of readings consisting of the following (in some cases the entire work, in other cases selected portions):
William J. Bouwsma, The Waning of the Renaissance 1550-1640. Yale, 2002.
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury. Norton Critical Edition, 1994.
Francis Fukuyama, The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order. Free Press, 1999.
Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting. University of Chicago Press, 2004.
(Copies of the following are in the reserve room of the Library)
Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism. Ballantine Books, 2000.
Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries. Harper, 1960.
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents. Norton, 1961.
Each student will generate a few brief written pieces in response to the above readings and class discussions.
In addition to the shared elements of this course, each student will select, in consultation and with the approval of the instructor, a topic relevant to the theme of the colloquium as the basis for a detailed analytical essay. Each topic will also be the basis of a discussion during a portion of a class session during the final weeks of the course.
In addition, this course offers an optional component. I will schedule several sessions outside of class to view two remarkably different cinematic narratives of the same complex set of events and dynamics: “Day One,” “Fat Man and Little Boy.” This opportunity is open to all students in the course, required of none, and strongly commended to anyone selecting a cinematography topic.
SCHEDULE
We will meet weekly at the scheduled time to discuss nuanced topics within our general theme according to the following schedule:
January 10 Introduction, Mechanics of the Course, Overview
January 17 Narrative, Story, Plot, Episode, Character
Faulkner
January 24 Narrative and the Phenomenology of Time Consciousness
Ricoeur, Part I Chapters 1 and 2
January 31 Narrative and History
Ricoeur, Part II Chapters 1 through 3
February 7 Narrative and Interpretation
Ricoeur, Part III Chapters 1 and 2
February 14 Narrative and Tension: A Freudian Interlude
Freud
February 21 Pre-Modern Narrative, Immanence, and Transcendence
Eliade, Chapters I, II, VI through VIII
February 28 Narrative and Cultural Taxonomy
Bouwsma, Chapters 1 through 8
March 6 Narrative and Information
Bouwsma, Chapters 9 through 16, Conclusion
March 13 The One True Narrative
Armstrong, Part Two
March 27 Mega-Narrative / Meta-Narrative / The End of Narrative?
Fukuyama
April 3 through April 24 Discussion of Student Topics
May 1 Final Evaluative Session
Essays on Individual Topics Due
ASSIGNMENTS / COURSE GRADE
Non-Graded but Essential Assignment:
On January 31, each student will submit a brief (no more than one page) proposal for a specialized topic related to the theme of this course. We will spend the latter part of the class session on this day adjusting the topic as needed.
Graded Assignments:
On February 7, and March 6, and April 3 each student will submit brief essays (2-5 pages) offering an analysis and interpretation based on the theme of this colloquium, the readings discussed, and the topics considered in class discussion up to that point in the course.
On May 1, each student will submit a longer essay (at least 12 pages) offering an analysis and interpretation based on the theme the student has selected for individual inquiry.
COURSE GRADE
The brief essays collectively will determine 25% of the final grade. The balance will be determined by the quality of the longer essay. The essays are graded according to the following criteria: A = You have written an essay in which you clearly state your thesis in the first paragraph, demonstrate a clear understanding of the material throughout, subject the material to a logical analysis in conformity with the thesis, and render an interpretation of the material which flows logically from the analysis. B = You have written an essay in which you clearly state your thesis in the first paragraph, demonstrate a clear understanding of the material throughout, and subject the material to a logical analysis in conformity with the thesis. C = You have written an essay in which you clearly state your thesis in the first paragraph, and demonstrate a clear understanding of the material throughout. D = You have demonstrated considerable familiarity with the material. F = You have demonstrated minimal familiarity with the material. This grade is also assigned to papers not submitted according to the instructions above, unless prior explicit permission is obtained from the professor.
ATTENDANCE: Attendance is required, and absences beyond three class hours (1 week) may result in an incrementally lower grade. In addition, you are responsible for all material covered in class whether you are there or not.
CELL PHONES AND BEEPERS: Turn them off during class. Yes, this applies to the professor as well.
RECORDING DEVICES: Students may record class sessions.