Narrative Across Cultures

The purpose of this course is to present a variety of narrative genres and to discuss and illustrate the modes whereby they can be analyzed. We will be looking at shorter types of narrative: short stories, novellas, and fables, and also some extracts from longer works such as autobiographies. While some works will come from the Anglo-American tradition, a larger number will be selected from European and non-Western cultural traditions and from earlier time periods. The course will thus offer ample opportunity for the exploration of the translation of cultural values in a comparative perspective. How does literature both connect cultures across time and space and speak about what is specific to each culture? In this course we will read several types of stories written in different periods and in different parts of the world, ranging from classical Greek and Sanskrit drama to modern African, European, American, and Asian novels. Many of these texts are very well known, have had long afterlives, and have been adapted and rewritten in distant spaces and times. In some cases, we will engage with these retellings. Others directly embody the coming together or friction between cultures and peoples. By studying them, we can reflect on how literary texts reflect the cultures in which they were produced and have a capacity to travel across cultures.