Stories and Storytelling: Attending to N

What is it to attend to narrative? Attending has its etymological roots in Latin, attendere, to stretch (one’s mind) towards, to get closer, which implies a gap between one’s mind and whatever it is one is attending to. Attendre in French means to wait, to expect, another gesture towards space between one’s mind and whatever one is waiting for or expecting. What happens in that space? What is it to attend? Is it to slow down and mind the gap? Or is it to pay or lend attention, as the phrase appears in multiple languages, as though the space is a debt that we or our minds owe? What does it look like to pay attention to narrative and stories?

This course offers an introduction to forms and functions of narrative with focus on three modes: perception, reflection, and memory. What distinguishes the texts we will study is how they themselves foreground and reflect on how stories are told and so perform the task of teaching us how to analyze them. Topics include the writing of the self; the nature of memory; the experience of time; the relationship between fact, fantasy, and fiction; and the search for truth. While we will cover a range of scripture, poetry, novels, essays, plays, comics, and hybrid literary forms, the demand of you as readers will be the same: lend your close attention to these works and give yourself time to reflect on them.