Professor Gillian Harkins
English 341A: Studies in the Novel
Class Meeting: T/Th 1:30-3:20 in THO 135
Office Hours: T/Th 12:00 – 1:00 PM or by appointment
In-Person: 504-A Padelford Hall / Virtual Appointments
Studies in the Novel:
On Narrators
Course Description:
This course will dwell in the strange and magical world of narrative fiction. We will read five novels published between 1898 and 2011, and we will read them carefully, patiently, and with the great gift of our collective attention. Each novel raises important and disconcerting questions about the act and art of narration, or how stories, characters and meanings appear through the lure of a narrative voice. What is a narrator? How does the presence or absence of the narrator as a character shape the meaning of the story itself? Are readers supposed to trust people they know or people they don’t know, voices they can identify and situate or voices that assume a position of unidentified authority? Which signs or codes convey narrative reliability, and which cue readers to question a narrator’s capacity to convey consistent meaning? How do these questions draw attention to the changing expectations or rules that shape narrative forms, and how does paying attention to such expectations or rules (or narrative conventions) raise larger questions about the ways trust, reliability, and meaning are organized more generally? We will read these novels with the goal of considering their narrative provocations to notice and question relations of authority and meaning. Our conversations will include reflections on these dynamics in present contexts, even as we seek to understand specific historical and social conditions discussed through the novels themselves.
While we will read a few short critical pieces on narrative and narrators, our main focus will be on the novels. We will read Henry James Turn of the Screw (1898), Nella Larsen Passing (1929), Jamaica Kincaid Lucy (1990), Lawrence Chua Gold by the Inch (1998) and Mohsin Hamid Exit West (2011). These novels will be available for purchase in print or digital editions through the University Bookstore or can be borrowed from the UW or other library system.
There will not be a final exam for this class. Coursework will consist of shorter in-class writing and two formal essays due at the midpoint and at the end of the quarter.