Forming and sharing and thinking about stories is our primary way of organizing experience: through them we make life and the world understandable and open to mastery. In this course we will read narratives across time, from antiquity to the present day, and across their wide diversity of forms, from poetry to novels to comic books, from plays to film and television. We will investigate the ways in which narrative has been put to use as an organizer of experience, and the ways in which it has been put to use in specific historical and political situations. Possible authors and works include Homer, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Conan Doyle, Joyce, Nabokov, and Shakespeare, among others. Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: 20 pages of writing in the form of short papers. No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected:19). Preference given to first-year students.