Tópicos Especiais (EGA 10094): Theories of Narrative

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL FLUMINENSE
INSTITUTO DE ARTES E COMUNICAÇÃO SOCIAL
DEPARTAMENTO DE ESTUDOS CULTURAIS E MÍDIA

Discipline: Tópicos Especiais II (EGA 10094)
Course: Theories of Narrative
Schedule: Mondays, 14 to 18:00
Venue: Room 405 – Building A - IACS/UFASA (Gragoatá)

Abstract: Fundamental problems of theories of narrative. From narrative
forms to textual structures: the relationship between history, narrative
and narration. The narrative structures: function, action, and narration;
the structural principles of myth and narrative forms. The temporal
structure of narratives: order, duration, and frequency; the links between
understanding and expressing time in narrative forms. The modes of
narrative: mimesis and diegesis. The problem of narrative voices:
discourse, enunciation, point of view, focalization. Narrative and reality:
the crossings between history and fiction. Pragmatic approaches to
narrative studies: the active dimension of reception of narrative texts;
paradigms of narrative tension (suspense, curiosity, surprise). The
different semiotic materials of narrative discourse.

Prologue: There is a considerable importance attached to systematic studies
of narrative communication in the culture of modern media culture - which
is proportional to the misapprehension of its manifestation in our field of
study. Firstly, in several theses, books, and articles circulating in
spheres of communication research, there are constant references to notions
such as "narrative", "narrativity", "narration", but mentioned in such a
degree of generality that enables a thought about the precise meaning of
these conceptual employments.
In that sense, narrative is a keyword articulating issues that are
specific to several discursive practices in media universes (thus related
to variables that make up the problem of enunciation as an aspect of
communicational texts): merged in such a fashion are two topic orders of
inquiry that narrative theories had clearly delineated as "narrativity, on
one side, and "discourse", on the other.
Another general instance of reference to narrative universes is one in
which "fabulatory" or "fictional" dimensions of certain processes and
products of our field of studies are intuitively assimilated to the very
concept of narrative: in these cases, to think of the idea that the
"historical" meaning of these practices is defined as a nucleus of
narrations (where confusion here occurs between concepts of "narrative" and
"history").
We might continue enumerating similar cases indefinitely, but the
diagnosis should be clear by now: in most speeches of theories and research
in communication studies, the reference to narrative is merely pretextual,
at least as regards to conceptual clarity animating theories of narrative:
the extensive theoretical corpus of narratology is an item of considerable
disdain from media theories – being such a conceptual good something coming
from literary studies, epistemology of history, or philosophy of language.
Disciplines that had reflected on narrative forms, their internal
structures and functioning, the epistemic orders assumed for its
actualization in the reader's/beholder's experience, their relationships
with mental and historical structures of understanding eventfulness, its
diversified manifestations in objects, modes and means, the extent of their
genres rules, all these specific aspects of a study of narratives were
dissolved in most of its evocation in the name of merely
"historical/contextual or discursive/ideological meanings of practices,
processes and products of media universes.
In this sense, we must recover the centre of a rigorous reflection on
the conceptual/phenomenal status of narrativity and its importance for
theories of communication, in a context where understanding these phenomena
necessarily passes through the recognition of the legitimacy of a
communicational question: what, after all, is narrating something?

Contents Summary:

1. Introduction: Limits of the Textual Order of Narratives

a. Frontiers of narrative: narration/imitation, story/discourse
(G.Genette/G.Prince/S.Chatman)
b. Narrative studies in Humanities: the case of mythologies (C.Levi-
Strauss/A.J.Greimas/F.Dosse)
c. Narrative structures of historical discourse: the factual and the
ficcional (P.Ricoeur/H.White)

2. Elements of Narrative

2.1 The discursive order of stories: topics, events, narrative sequence
a. The semiotic constraints of modern narrative theories (P.Ricoeur)
b. Topic and Isotopy: ways of determining story's subjects and settings
(U.Eco/A.J.Greimas)
b. Structural Analysis of Narrative: functions, actions, narration
(R.Barthes/P.Ricoeur/S.Chatman);
c. Proairesis and Actantial Structures: succession/evaluation of actions
(R.Barthes/U.Eco/A.J.Greimas)


2.2. Shadows of voices in stories: the theoretical status of narrative
enunciation
a. Subjective regimes of linguistic discursiveness: perspectives of
discourse analysis (E.Benveniste)
b. The narratological instance of narration: the narrative voice
(G.Genette)
c. Typologies of narrative discourse and dialogical orders of enunciation
(M.Bakhtin)
d. Media varieties of narrative enunciation in film and sequential arts
(A.Gaudreault/F.Jost/T.Groensteen)


2.3. Temporalities and tensions: narratives, emotion, performance
a. Temporal vectors of narrative succession: order, duration, and
frequency (G.Genette)
b. Narrative Fiction as a Textual Game: the role of the reader
(W.Iser/P.Ricoeur)
c. The emotional order of reading and textual understanding: paradigms of
"narrative tension" (R.Baroni)
d. The discursivity of eventfulness: fundaments of historical narrativity
(P. Ricoeur/H.White)

Practical Procedures and Evaluation Criteria:
The course will be entirely structured upon oral expositions, of which
written notes will be made available for students at the end of each
session in the seminar's blog ( ). For a productive following of sessions,
it is required that the reading of items is up to date before each thematic
exposition (see those items below, at "Sessions Schedule" and "Basic
Bibliography"). The final evaluation of the course will consist of a
written text, to be delievered at a date and format to be negociated in the
first session of the seminar.

Basic Bibliography:
Introduction:
CHATMAN, Seymour. "Introduction". In: Story and Discourse. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press (1978): pp. 15,42;
DOSSE, François. "Mythology's earth is round". In : History of
Structuralism. Vol 1 (eng.trans. Deborah Glassman). Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press (1997) : pp. 250,263;
GENETTE, Gérard. "Frontiers of narrative". In: et al.: Figures of Literary
Discourse (eng.trans. Alan Sheridan). New York: Columbia University Press
(1982): pp. 123,144;
GREIMAS, A.J. "Elements of a narrative grammar" (eng.trans. Catherine
Porter). In: Diacritics. 7/1 (1977): pp. 23,40;
LEVI-STRAUSS, Claude. "The structural study of myth". In: The Journal of
American Folklore. 68/270 (1955): pp. 428,444;
PRINCE, Gerald. "Surveying narratology". In: What Is Narratology? (Tom
Kindt, Hans-Harald Muller, Eds.). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (2003): pp.
1,16;
RICOEUR, Paul. "The interweaving of History and Fiction". In: Time and
Narrative. Vol. 3 (eng.trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press (1988): pp. 180,192;
WHITE, Hayden. "The question of narrative in contemporary historical
theory". In: History and Theory. 23/1 (1984): pp. 1,33.

2.1: The discursive order of stories: topics, events, narrative sequence
BARTHES, Roland. "The sequences of actions". In: The Semiotic Challange
(eng.trans. Richard Howard). Berkeley: University of California Press
(1994): pp. 136, 150;
BARTHES, Roland. "An Introduction to structural analysis of narrative"
(eng.transl. Lioel Duisit). In: New Literary History. 6/2 (1975): pp.
237,272;
CHATMAN, Seymour. "Story: events" and "Story: existents". In: Story and
Discourse. Ithaca: Cornell University Press (1978): pp. 43,145;
ECO, Umberto. "Introduction: the role of the reader". In: The Role of the
Reader. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (1984): pp. 3, 43;
GREIMAS, A.J., RASTIER, F. "The Interaction of semiotic constraints". In:
Yale French Studies. 41 (1968): pp. 86,105;
GENETTE, Gérard. "Order", "Duration", "Frequency." In: Narrative Discourse
(eng.trans. Jane E. Lewin). Ithaca: Cornell University Press (1980): pp.
83,160;
RICOEUR, Paul. "The semiotic constraints on narrativity". In: Time and
Narrative. Vol. 2 (eng.trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press (1985): pp. 29,60;
RICOEUR, Paul. "Greimas' narrative grammar". In; New Literary History. 20/3
(1989): pp. 581, 608.

Unidade 2.2: Shadows of voices in stories: the theoretical status of
narrative enunciation
BAKHTIN, Mikhail. "Types of Prose Discourse: discourse in Dostoievsky" In:
Problems in Dostoievsky's Poetics (eng.trans. Caryl Emerson). Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press (1984): pp. 181,203;
BENVENISTE, Émile. "The correlations of tense in the French verb". In:
Problems of General Linguistics (eng.trans. Mary Elisabeth Meek). Miami:
University of Miami Press (1971): pp. 205, 216;
BENVENISTE, Émile. "Subjectivity in language". In: Problems of General
Linguistics (eng.trans. Mary Elisabeth Meek). Miami: University of Miami
Press (1971): pp. 223,230;
CHATMAN, Seymour. "The literary narrator" and "The cinematic narrator". In:
Coming to Terms. Ithaca: Cornell University Press (1990): pp. 109,138;
GAUDREAULT, A. And JOST, François. "Enunciation and narrattion". In et al.:
A Companion to Film Theory (Toby Miller, Robert Stam, Eds.). Oxford:
Blackwell (1999): pp. 45,63;
GENNETTE, Gérard. "Voice". In: Narrative Discourse (eng.trans. Jane E.
Lewin). Ithaca: Cornell University Press (1980): pp. 212,262;
GROENSTEEN, Thierry. "The question of the narrator". In: Comics and
Narration (eng.trans. Ann Miller). Jacksonville: University Press of
Mississipi (2013): pp. 79,120.

2.3: Temporalities and tensions: narratives, emotion, performance
BARONI, Raphaël. "Virtualities of plot and dynamics of rereading". In et
al. Narrative Sequence in Contemporary Narratology (R.Baroni, F.Revaz,
Eds.). Columbus: Ohio University Press (2016): pp. 87,103;
ECO, Umberto. "Peirce and the Semiotic Foundations of Openness: signs as
texts and texts as signs". In: The Role of the Reader. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press (1984): pp. 175,199;
ECO, Umberto. "Lingering in the Woods". In: Six Waks in the Fictional
Woods. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1995): pp. 49,76;
ISER, Wolfgang. "Indeterminacy and the reader's response in prose fiction".
In et al.: Aspects of Narrative (J.Hillis Miller, Ed.). New York: Columbia
University Press (1972): pp. 1,46;
PIER, John "On the semiotic parameters of narrative". In: What Is
Narratology? (Tom Kindt, Hans-Harald Muller, Eds.). Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter (2003): pp. 73,97;
RICOEUR, Paul. "Games with time". In: Time and Narrative. Vol. 2
(eng.trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer). Chicago: University of
Chicago Press (1985): pp. 61,99;
RICOEUR, Paul. "The world of the text and the world of the reader". In:
Time and Narrative. Vol. 3 (eng.trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer).
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1988): pp. 157,179;
WHITE, Hayden. "The value of narrativity in the representation of reality".
In: Critical Inquiry. 7/1 (1980): 5,27;

Sessions Schedule:
1. 05/09: Presenting the course syllabus[1];
2. 12/09: Frontiers of Narrative: diversified subjects of narrative
theories (Genette/Prince/Chatman);
3. 19/09: Mythology and Narrative Grammar: narratology in Humanities
(Levi-Strauss/Greimas/Dosse)
4. 26/09: History, time and narrative: interweavings of the factual and
the fictional (Ricoeur/White)
5. 03/10: Narrative's Structure and Logic: from a semiotic point of view
(Barthes/Greimas/Ricoeur)
6. 10/10: Topic and Isotopy: hypothezing subjects and textual coherence
of narratives (Eco/Greimas)
7. 17/10: Proairesis and actantial structures: disjunction and evaluation
(Barthes/Eco/Greimas)
8. 24/10: From action to narration: levels, focalization, subjectivity
(Genette/Chatman/Benveniste)[2]
9. 31/10: Varieties of narrative enunciation: cinematic/sequential
narration (Chatman/Jost/Gaudreault)
10. 07/11: Speech acts and typologies of discursive orientation in
literary prose (Benveniste/Bakhtin)
11. 14/11: Temporal structures of narrative discourse: order, duration,
frequency (Genette)
12. 21/11: Lector in Fabula: from structural semantics to pragmatics of
reading (Baroni/Eco./Pier)
13. 28/11: Textual games and levels of indeterminacy (Iser/Eco/Ricoeur)
14. 05/12: Delectatio morosa and Narrative Tension: the "timic"order of
narratives (Baroni/Eco)
15. 12/12: Narrative discursivity of eventfulness: the narrative
representation of reality (Ricoeur/White)
16. 19/12: end session: discussions and suggestions about final essays.

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[1] Film exhibition: Stranger than Fiction (2006), by Marc Foster
[2] Exhibition: Live coverage – JFK Assassination, CBS News (1963)