ENGL 120
The Nature of Narrative Spring 2025 (also offered Fall 2024)
Division I Writing Skills
Cross-listed COMP 111

Narrative–storytelling–is a fundamental human activity. Narratives provide us with maps of how the world does or should or might work, and we make sense of our own experiences through the narratives we construct ourselves. This course examines the nature and functions of narrative using texts from a wide range of literary traditions, media, and genres. Readings may span classics (e.g. Homerian epic, The Tale of Genji, and/or the Popol Vuh), fiction ranging from nineteenth-century realism to postmodern experimentation (possibly including Kafka, Tolstoy, Toni Morrison, and/or Emile Habibi), and visual literature from film and drama to graphic memoir (possibly including Mizoguchi Kenji, Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and/or Joe Sacco). We may also read some short works of literary theory from around the world to help us broaden our idea of what literature can be and do. All readings in English.