In this course we will read first-rate fiction by first-rate writers from a wide variety of traditions and eras in an effort to understand the meaning of narrative. How does narrative technique shape our understanding of a given text? In what ways, and for what purposes, do authors create different narrators to present a story? Our texts will include writings from Antiquity, and by Cervantes, Goethe, Gogol, Woolf, Kafka, and Nabokov, as well as several films. We will accompany these texts with pertinent theoretical pieces by-among others-Aristotle, Plato, Culler, Benjamin, and Foucault. All readings in English. Format: lecture/discussion. Requirements: active class participation, three short papers, and a final 10-page paper. No prerequisites. This course is writing-intensive. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 15). (Literary Genres)