LIT 304 - Self-Narration Before and After Proust

This course will explore examples of self-narration in French literary works (in English translation) prior to and throughout the twentieth century, with Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way situated as the text alongside which and against which we will read other texts of self-narration, both autobiographical and fictional. The modes, gestures, and habits of self-narration that dominate contemporary life and that are immediately familiar today have rich literary examples. Self-fashioning, self-exploration, giving an account of oneself, organizing the relationship between one’s past and present, identifying meaningful patterns in the experiences of daily life; all of these may be considered components of a project of self-narration. Although this course will entail discussion of theoretical questions surrounding the project of self-narration (for instance, autofiction, the autobiographical pact, writing and memory, writing and the self), the primary focus of the course will be careful reading of the literary texts themselves, with emphasis on formal analysis. Authors read include Rousseau, Proust, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Leiris, Sarraute, Modiano, and Chamoiseau. LIT courses conducted in English.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).