Narrative and Meta-narrative

3 credits · Undergraduate

This course will explore twentieth-century theories of the narrative and the increasingly broad claims made for the role of narrativity in politics, psychology and literature. Starting from Lyotard's characterization of the post-modern as an incredulity towards meta-narratives, the course will look at literary narratives (for example, Balzac, Borges, Thomas Pynchon and Alice Munroe) as well as theories of the narrative (Levi-Strauss, Freud, Lacan, Lyotard, and Roland Barthes). Topics to be considered include the constitution of social narratives, possible grounds for the interpretation of narrative, the relation of narrative to ideology and the explanatory power of meta-narratives FORMATS: Seminar