492 W18 Hirschkop

492

University Of Waterloo:  Department Of English Language And Literature English 492: Special Topics – Revised Syllabus Narrative In Fiction, Film, And Video Games

WINTER 2018

(Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11.30-12:50, StJ1 3015)

Dr Ken Hirschkop

Hagey Hall 245

Tel: 888-4567 x32095.    Email: khirschk@uwaterloo.ca

Office Hours: Tuesdays, 9:30-10:00; Thursdays, 2:00-3:00, or by appointment

Course Goals And Learning Outcomes

This course is about narrative in its various forms and media. We will look at narrative in literary texts, in films and television, in journalism, and in video games. The course will combine reading in narrative theory with many opportunities for applied narrative analysis.

By the end of the course, you should:

Have a solid grasp of basic concepts in narrative theory and be able to apply them in a sophisticated manner in narrative analysis

• Understand the distinctive features of narrative in a variety of media
• Be familiar with some basic types of narrative plot (mystery, romance, science fiction)
• Understand what contributes to the success or failure of various narratives, in a way that may help with your own narrative writing.

Course Texts

Our course ‘theory’ text is H. Porter Abbott, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, 2^nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). You should purchase a copy of this from the University bookstore. Course literary texts will be available online either as .pdfs or through links. Films should be viewable through YouTube of Netflix (you may have to rent the YouTube ones). I will not expect you to play the relevant videogames: you can ‘experience’ them via walkthroughs on YouTube or on websites associated with the game.

Assessment

Attendance and participation:  20%

Responses:  30%

News reports:  10%

Final essay outline:  10%

Final essay:  30%

Attendance and class participation:

Form:  You are expected to attend every class and to participate in class discussion.

Submission methods and dates: Attendance will be taken for every class and class participation noted. If you have an excuse for missing a class, please email me or leave me a note. You can miss classes for medical reasons and for unforeseeable personal difficulties. Every excused absence must be documented.

Grading criteria: If you attend every class but say nothing, you will receive a 65 for this part of the assessment. If you have more than three unexcused absences, you lose 20% from this part of your grade; more than six classes, 40%, and so on (which means 4% off your cumulative mark for the course for 4 absences, 8% for 7 absences, and so on). Class participation is graded on how well and how often you contribute. Contributions to discussion should demonstrate that you have read the material carefully and will be assessed on their relevance, interest, and originality. Participation will be graded as fair (5% added), good (10%) added, very good 15% (added), excellent (20% added), superb (25% added), or terrific (30%).

Responses:

Form: Over the course of the term, you will submit five responses of 400-500 words each. Responses should cover the ‘object’ texts (stories, films, video games), not the theory, but you may choose which texts to respond to so long as at least one is to a literary text, one to a film , and one to a videogame. The responses should tell us what you find, from a narrative point of view, interesting or original about the text in question

Submission methods and dates: Responses will be submitted to the appropriate dropboxes. You must submit at least 2 by February 19 and all 5 by March 29^. You must submit your response in advance of the class in which that text is discussed: responses submitted after the class will not be counted.

Grading criteria: Thoughtfulness of the response; care with which tools learned on the course are used. If 2 responses are not submitted by February 19, or 5 by March 29, you will get a 0 for each missing response.

News reports:

Form: On Thursday, March 15, the class will be broken into groups. Each group will be assigned a news item. The group is to find 4 narrative accounts of each news item (they can be visual or written), which they will compare and analyse for the class.

Submission method and dates: The submission will take the form of a 12 minute presentation to the class.

Grading criteria:  Precision and insightfulness of the comparisons; clarity of presentation.

Final essay outline:

Form: The essay outline should state the critical argument you wish to make and should show how you will make your case in detail. It should describe which narrative features of the text you will focus on and which parts of the text you will examine in detail. The essay outline is not ‘binding’: if, in writing out the essay, you end up doing something different than what you had planned, that is fine. The essay outline should be 2-3 double-spaced pages. It can include a bibliography, although I do not expect a lengthy list of secondary sources

Submission and dates: The final essay outline is to be submitted electronically, in the appropriate dropbox on the LEARN website, on Monday, April 9^th, at 5 pm.

Grading criteria: Coherence of argument, detail of outline, the degree to which you use tools we have acquired on the course.

Final essay:

Form: An analysis of a single work using the critical terms and methods we have studied on the course. You will be given a choice of texts on which to write. The final essay should be 4000 words long (including bibliography and/or notes).

Submission method and dates: The final essay is to be submitted electronically, in the appropriate dropbox on the LEARN website, on Tuesday, April 17^th, at 5 pm.

Grading criteria: Intelligence with which you use the tools we’ve studied; the sophistication, inventiveness and persuasiveness of the analysis; the lucidity and elegance of the writing; the organization and presentation of the argument. I won’t expect any secondary reading, but you are welcome to support your analysis with some historical background if that’s appropriate. Final essays than are late will be penalised 3% for the first day and 1% each additional day.

Week-by- Week Schedule

NB: The choice of texts may be altered during the course

Week One: Jan 4

Thursday:  Introduction - What is narrative?

Part One: Basic terms and concepts

Week Two: January 9-11

Tuesday:  What is narrative? – basic elements

Reading:  Chapters 1-2, of Abbott, Cambridge Introduction

Thursday: Sample narratives: ‘Nellie McClung’, ‘Hart & Papineau’, Heritage Minutes, Historica Canada; Apple ad ‘1984’; Tim Horton’s Hockey Ad; Isaac Babel, ‘The King’.

Week Three: January 16-18

Tuesday:  Links, endings, style

Reading:  Chapters 4-6, of Abbott, Cambridge Introduction

Thursday: Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Musgrave Ritual’

Part Two: Mystery

Week Four: January 23-25

Tuesday:  Roland Barthes, ‘Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative’, (pdf on D2L)

Thursday:  Walter Mosley, ‘Smoke’ (in Six Easy Pieces New York:  Atra Books, 2003).

Week 5: January 30 - February 1

Tuesday:  Chapter 9, Abbott, Cambridge Introduction

Thursday:  The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1975)

Week 6: February 6-8

Tuesday: Chapter 10, Abbott, Cambridge Introduction

Thursday:   Jan   Simons,   ‘Narrative,   Games,    and   Theory’,    Game   Studies   7.1                  (August 2007):

http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/simons;  Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream, 2010)

Part Three: Romance

Week 7: February 13-15

Tuesday: Chapters 7-8, Abbott, Cambridge Introduction

Thursday: William Shakespeare, As You Like It

[Reading week: February 19-23]

Week 8: February 27 - March 1

Tuesday:  Chapter 12, Abbott, Cambridge Introduction

Thursday:  Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002).

Part Four: Nonfictional narrative

Week 9: March 6-8

Tuesday:  Chapter 11, Abbott, Cambridge Introduction

Thursday:  ‘Let’s Like, Demolish Laundry’, New York Magazine (May 2014)

Week 10: March 13-15

Tuesday:  Chapter 13, Abbott, Cambridge Introduction:

Thursday: News report day

Part Five: Science fiction

Week 11: March 20-22

Tuesday:  Chapter 13, Abbott, Cambridge Introduction

Thursday:  William Gibson, ‘Johnny Mnemonic’.

Week 12: March 27-29

Tuesday:  Black Mirror, Season 3, Episode 1( ‘Nosedive’).

Thursday:  To the Moon (Freebird Games, 2017)

Week 12.5: April 3

Tuesday:  Essay workshop

Cross-listed course

Please note that a cross-listed course will count in all respective averages no matter under which rubric it has been taken. For example, a PHIL/PSCI cross-list will count in a Philosophy major average, even if the course was taken under the Political Science rubric.

Academic Integrity

Academic Integrity: In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. See the UWaterloo Academic Integrity webpage and the Arts Academic Integrity webpage for more information.

Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing academic offences, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course professor, academic advisor, or the Undergraduate Associate Dean. When misconduct has been found to have occurred, disciplinary penalties will be imposed under Policy 71 – Student Discipline. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71 - Student Discipline. For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.