Utell - Engagements with Narrative

Engagements with Narrative

Balancing key foundational topics with new developments and trends, Engagements with Narrative offers an accessible introduction to narratology. As new narrative forms and media emerge, the study of narrative and the ways people communicate through imagination, empathy, and storytelling is especially relevant for students of literature today. Janine Utell presents the foundational texts, key concepts, and big ideas that form narrative theory and practical criticism, engaging readers in the study of stories by telling the story of a field and its development.

Distinct features designed to initiate dialogue and debate include:

Coverage of philosophical and historical contexts surrounding the study of narrative.

An introduction to essential thinkers along with the tools to both use and interrogate their work.

A survey of the most up-to-date currents, including mind theory and postmodern ethics, to stimulate conversations about how we read fiction, life writing, film, and digital media from a variety of perspectives.

A selection of narrative texts, chosen to demonstrate critical practice and spark further reading and research.

Engagements sections to encourage students to engage with narrative theory and practice through interviews with scholars.

This guide teaches the key concepts of narrativetime, space, character, perspective, settingwhile facilitating conversations among different approaches and media, and opening paths to new inquiry. Engagements with Narrative is ideal for readers needing an introduction to the field, as well as for those seeking insight into both its historical developments and new directions.

Janine Utell is Professor and Chair of English at Widener University, USA.

Routledge Engagements with Literature

This series presents engagement as discovery. It aims to encourage ways to read seriously and to help readers hone and develop new habits of thinking critically and creatively about what they readbefore, during, and after doing it. Each book in the series actively involves its readers by encouraging them to find their own insights, to develop their own judgments, and to inspire them to enter ongoing debates. Moreover, each Engagements volume:

Provides essential information about its topic as well as alternative views and approaches;

Covers the classic scholarship on its topic as well as the newest approaches and suggests new directions for study and research;

Includes innovative engagements sections that demonstrate practices for engaging with literature or that provide suggestions for further independent engagement;

Provides an array of fresh, stimulating, and effective catalysts to reading, thinking, writing, and research.

Above all, Routledge Engagements with Literature shows that actively engaging with literature rewards the effort and that any reader can make new discoveries. My hope is the books in this series will help readers discover new, better, and more exciting and enjoyable ways of doing what we do when we read.

Series Editor

Daniel A. Robinson

Available in this series:

Engagements with Close Reading

Annette Federico

Engagements with Narrative

Janine Utell

Engagements with Narrative

Janine Utell

First published 2016

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2016 Janine Utell

The right of Janine Utell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Utell, Janine, 1975

Engagements with narrative/Janine Utell.

pages cm.(Routledge engagements with literature)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Narration (Rhetoric) I. Title.

PN212.U84 2015

808.036dc23

2015015911

ISBN: 978-0-415-73244-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-73246-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-77905-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

by Book Now Ltd, London

Contents

Figures

Tables

Thanks are due first and foremost to those with whom I have worked at Routledge, starting with thanks to my external readers for excellent suggestions on the initial proposal. I am grateful to Ruth Hilsdon for her patience and assistance in preparing the final manuscript. My colleague and series editor Daniel Robinson extended the invitation to write this book; he also made a number of helpful suggestions for improving it, for which I am exceedingly grateful.

I was inspired to pursue a project along these lines after participating in the 2011 Project Narrative Summer Institute at Ohio State University. James Phelan and Frederick Luis Aldama led PNSI that year, and I couldnt have asked for more supportive mentors. My fellow narrative campers were likewise supportive, and offered seemingly endless opportunities for good conversation and invaluable feedback. In particular, I would like to thank Jennifer Ho, for helpful initial feedback; Leah Anderst, for insight into narrative and film; and James Donahue, for guidance and support in the final days of completing the manuscript. Their friendship is a gift.

A highlight of this book is the interviews that were so generously granted by colleagues working in narrative studies: Leah Anderst, Sarah Copland, James Donahue, Jennifer Ho, Suzanne Keen, Sue Kim, Adam Zachary Newton, Anastasia Salter. I know readers will enjoy and learn from their contributions as much as I have. It has been a privilege to work with them to bring this component of the book to fruition.

Much gratitude is due to my students at Widener University, especially in my courses on film, graphic narrative, life writing, and the British novel. They have given me good ideas, given me good feedback on my bad ideas, and allowed me to test readings and analyses on them with patience and enthusiasm. Thanks also to my colleagues in the English Department at Widener for their collegiality and support. And of course this project would never have been possible without the herculean efforts of the Interlibrary Loan staff of Wolfgram Memorial Library.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge, with appreciation beyond words, the support of my family: John and Linda Utell, Susan Utell and Bill Groshelle, and Tracy, Glen, and Abigail Farber. Their patience as I was trying to get this project done, their good humor, their unending support, and their helpful ideas and suggestions as lovers of good stories all made this book possible. Special thanks are due to John-Paul Spiro, without whom a lot of this would simply not be possible. My sister Tracy and I have shared a lifetime of stories, and her daughter, my amazing niece Abigail, is quite a remarkable storyteller in her own right. (Abigail also sat through numerous readings of