HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: romance and latin american studies

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: Spanish

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Prof. Ruth Fine

Coordinator Email: ruth.fine@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Thursday 12.00-14.00, room 5807

Teaching Staff:
Prof Ruth Fine

Course/Module description:
This course will focus on Narrative Fiction Theory and its particular expression in Latin American Literature, especially during the 20th and 21st century. We will analyze literary works by Jorge Luis Borges, Horacio Quiroga, Juan Rulfo, Julio Cortázar, Juan José Saer, Alejandro Zambra and others, and the main literary trends, such as the bricolage, the fantastic and the Magical Realism.

Course/Module aims:
The course aims to provide the students with a solid theoretical basis on narrative fiction, as well as textual analytical tools and a broad knowledge of the main literary developments in Latin American contemporary literature.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
• Critically read and analyze fiction.
• Recognize and discuss the major trends characterizing contemporary Latin American Literature.
• Relate the works and trends to each other and to other examples of Latin American contemporary literature
• Discuss the poetics which both shape and is shaped by the literary works studied in class.
• Identify key literary and cultural concepts in this period and their presence and influence in the studied corpus.

Attendance requirements(%):
75%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Seminar course: intensive reading and participation of the students in the class discussion.
The student can write a final seminar paper.

Course/Module Content:
Contemporary Narrative Fiction Theory (Text/Story, Narrator, Time, Focalization, Characters, Reliability, Gaps) and its specific presence and recreation in Latin American Contemporary Fiction (Magical Realism, Fantastic Fiction, Bricolage and Detective Fiction)

Required Reading:
1. Monterroso, Augusto. “El dinosaurio”, en Obras completas y otros cuentos.
2. Borges, Jorge Luis. “La luna” en La moneda de hierro.
3. Borges, Jorge Luis. “Baruch Spinoza”, en La moneda de hierro.
4. Borges, Jorge Luis. "El milagro secreto", en Ficciones.
5. Manuel, Juan. El Conde Lucanor, Ejemplos 35 y 51 [50] .
6. Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. El celoso extremeño, en Novelas ejemplares.
7. Roa Bastos, Augusto. "El baldío", en El baldío.
8. Sergio Bizzio. Rabia.
9. Cortázar, Julio. "La noche boca arriba", en Final del juego.
10. Quiroga, Horacio. "La insolación", en El regreso de Anaconda y otros cuentos.
11. Alejandro Zambra, Bonsai.
12. Saer, Juan José, La pesquisa.
13. Borges, J. L., "La muerte y la brújula", en Ficciones.
14. Cortázar, Julio. “Lejana”, Bestiario.
15. Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Páramo.

Additional Reading Material:
1. Monika Fludernik (2009). An Introduction to Narratology. Abingdon - New York : Routledge, cap. I "Narrative and Narrating".
2. Jakobson, Roman (1960). "Linguistics and Poetics", en Style in Language, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok. Cambridge, Mass.: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, pp. 350-358. (Hay edición en hebreo y en español). 274-285 (1970) 2 הםפרות.
3. Meister, Jan Christoph: "Narratology". In: Hühn, Peter et al. (eds.): the living handbook of narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press.
URL &eq; hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php?title&eq;Narratology&oldid&eq;1584

1. Bal, Mieke (1977). Narratologie. Paris: Klienscksrieck. (hay edición en inglés y español).
2. Booth, Wayne (1973). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press.
3. Brooks, Peter (1985). Reading for the plot. New York: Vintage Books, pp. 3/36.
4. Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press.
5. Hawkes, Terence (1977). Structuralism & Semiotics. London: Methuen, pp. 73-87.
6. Hrushovski, Benjamin (1976). "Poetics, Criticism, Science: Remarks on the Fields and Responsibilities of the Study of Literature", Poetics and the Theory of Literature I, 3-25.
7. Mitchell, W.J.T. (ed.) (1981). On Narrative. Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press.
8. Ortega y Gasset, José (1956). "La deshumanización del Arte", en La deshumanización del Arte. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, pp. 1-54.
9. Scheffel, Michael: "Narrative Constitution". In: Hühn, Peter et al. (eds.): the living handbook of narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press.
URL &eq; hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php?title&eq;Narrative Constitution&oldid&eq;827
10. Todorov, Tzvetan (1974). Literatura y significación. Barcelona: Planeta.
11. White, Hayden (1981). “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality”, en On Narrative. Ed. W.J.T. Mitchell. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-23.

1. Olrik, Axel (1965). "Epics Laws of Folk Narrative", en The Study of Folklore, ed. Alan Dundes. Engl. Cliffs, N. J.: P. Hall.
2. Todorov, Tzvetan (1973). Poétique. Paris: Seuil, cap. IV (Hay edición en español y en inglés: Introduction to Poetics).
3. -------- (1977). "Narrative Men", en The Poetics of Prose, trad. Richard Howard. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, pp. 66-79.

1. Barthes, Roland (1972). "Introducción al análisis estructural de los relatos", trad. Beatriz Dorriots, en Análisis estructural del relato. Buenos Aires: Tiempo contemporáneo, pp. 9-43.
2. Culler, Jonathan (1980). "Fabula and Sjuzhet in the Analysis of Narrative", Poetics Today, I: 3, 27-37.
3. Lotman, Jurij M. (1979). "The Origin of Plot in the Light of Typology", Poetics Today, I: 1-2 , 17-39.
4. Propp, Vladimir (1968). Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, Cap. II, pp. 19-24.
5. -------- (1977b). "Primitive Narrative", en The Poetics of Prose, trad. Richard Howard. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, pp. 53-65.

1. Rimmon Kenan, Shlomith (1983). Narrative Fiction. London and N. Y.: Methuen, pp. 43-58.
2. Scheffel, Michael et al.: "Time". In: Hühn, Peter et al. (eds.): the living handbook of narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press.
URL http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/time

1. Currie, Mark (2007). About Time. Narrative, Fiction and the Philosophy of
Time. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
2. Dannenberg, Hilary P. (2004). “Ontological Plotting. Narrative as a Multiplicity of Temporal Dimensions”. J. Pier (ed.). The Dynamics of Narrative Form. Studies in Anglo-American Narratology. Berlin: de Gruyter, 159–89.
3. Eco, Umberto (1979). The Role of the Reader. Bloomington & London: Indiana Univ. Press.
4. Iser, Wolfgang (1971). The Implied Reader. Baltimore: John Hopkins Univ. Press.
5. Meister J. Chr. & W. Schernus (eds.) (2011). Time. From Concept to Narrative Construct. A Reader. Berlin: de Gruyter.
6. Ricoeur, Paul (1981). “Narrative time”, en On Narrative. Ed. W.J.T. Mitchell. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
7. Segre, Cesare (1976). Las estructuras y el tiempo, trad. M. Arizmendi y M. Hernández Esteban. Barcelona: Planeta, pp. 24-28.
8. Todorov, Tzvetan (1970). "Las categorías del relato literario", en Análisis estructural del relato. Buenos Aires: Tiempo contemporáneo, pp. 155-192.

1. Amossy, Ruth (1984) "Stereotypes and Representation in Fiction", Poetics Today, V: 4, 689-700.
2. Cixous, Hélène (1974). “The character of ¨character¨”, en: En: New Literary History, 5, 383-402.
3. Ewen, Josef (1971) "הדמות בםפרות", en הספרות 3, 1-30.

1. Ewen, Josef (1980) Character in Narrative (en hebreo). Tel Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim.
2. Greimas, Algirdas J. (1973) "Les actants, les acteurs et les figures", en Sémiotique narrative et textuelle, ed. C. Chabrol. Paris: Larousse.
3. Harvey, W. John (1965). Character and the Novel. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press.
4. Hochman, Baruch (1985). Character in Literature. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, cap.II y cap. IV.

1. Cohn, Dorrit (2000). “Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction”, in Michael McKeon (ed.) Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 493-514.

2. Genette, Gerard (1980) Narrative Discourse. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, pp. 185-211.


1. Bal, Mieke (1981) "The laughing mice or: on focalization", Poetics Today, 2, 2, 202-10.
4. Uspensky, Boris (1973) A Poetics of Composition. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.


1. Genette, Gerard (op. cit.), cap. V, pp. 227-262.
2. Yacobi, Tamar (2001). “Package Deals in Fictional Narrative: The Case of the Narrator’s (Un–)Reliability”, en: Narrative, 9: 223–229.
3. Zerweck, Bruno (2001). “Historicizing Unreliable Narration: Unreliability and Cultural Discourse in Narrative Fiction”, en: Style, 35: 151–178.


1. Dällenbach, Lucien (1977) Le récit speculaire. Paris: Seuil.
2. Fine, Ruth (1993). “Aportes para un nuevo enfoque del relato especular”. Reflejos 2, 2, 27-36.
3. Genette, Gerard (1983) Nouveau discours du recit. Paris: Seuil.
4. Lyon, Thomas E. (1972) “Borges y el narrador (casi) personal y (casi) omnisciente”, en Revista Chilena de Literatura, 5-6, pp. 59-71.
5. Mc Hale, Brian (1978) "Free Indirect Discourse". Poetics and Theory of Literature, 3, 249-87.
6. Pier, John: "Metalepsis". In: Hühn, Peter et al. (eds.): the living handbook of narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press.
URL &eq; hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php?title&eq;Metalepsis&oldid&eq;1509

Eco, Umberto (1977) Apocalípticos e integrados. Barcelona: Lumen.
1. Holzapfel, Tamara (1979). "Crime and Detection in a Defective World: The Detective Fictions of Borges and Durrenmatt", STCL, III, 1, 53- 71.
2. Todorov, Tzvetan (1977) "The Typology of the Detective Fiction" in The Poetics of the Prose. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press.

1. Barrenechea, Ana María (1985). La expresión de la irrealidad en la obra de Jorge Luis Borges. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
2. Barthes, Roland (1973). "Analyse textuelle d'un conte d'Edgar Poe", en Sémiotique narrative et textuelle. Paris: Larousse, pp. 29-54. Edición en español: Chabrol C. (1979) Barthes- Poe, pp. 39-45.
3. Bennet, Mauricio J. (1983). "The Detective Fiction of Poe and Borges", Comparative Literature 35, 3, 262- 275.
4. Díaz-Migoyo, Gonzalo (1988). "Truth Disguised: Chronicle of a Death (Ambiguously) Foretold" in Julio Ortega (ed.). Gabriel García Márquez and the Powers of Fiction. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, pp. 74-86.
5. Dorfles, Gilo (1973). Nuevos ritos, nuevos mitos, trad. A. Saderman. Barcelona: Lumen, pp.181-201.
6. Eco, Umberto (1977) Apocalípticos e integrados. Barcelona: Lumen.
7. Fama, Antonio (1983). "Análisis de 'La muerte y la brújula' de Jorge Luis Borges", Bulletin Hispanique 85, 1-2, 161-73.
8. Hutcheon, Linda (1985) A Theory of Parody. N.Y. & London: Methuen.
9. Klein, L.B. (1974) “Los falsos indicios en la narrativa de Jorge Luis Borges”, en Symposium 28, 146-153.
10. Mcnerney, Kathleen (1989). Understanding Gabriel García Márquez. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, pp. 132-154.
11. Moles, Abraham y Eberhard Wahl (1971) "Kitsch y objeto", en Comunicaciones. Buenos Aires: Tiempo Contemporáneo.
12. Murch, A E. (1968) The Development of the Detective Novel. N.Y.: Kennicat Press.
13. Priestman, Martin (ed.) (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Detective Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14. Solotorevsky, Myrna (1988) Literatura - Paraliteratura. Gaithersburg: Ediciones Hispamérica, pp. 11-23.




1. Anderson Imbert, Enrique (1976) El Realismo Mágico y otros ensayos.
Caracas: Monte Avila Editores.
2. Carpentier, Alejo (1949) "De lo real maravilloso", prólogo a su novela El reino de este mundo. México: EDIAPSA.
3. Todorov, Tzvetan (1975). The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, cap. II & III.


1. Bakhtin, Mikhail (1984) Problems of Dostoievsky's Poetry. Manchester: Univ. Press, pp. 308-312.
2. Brooke-Rose, Christine (1983) A Rethoric of the Unreal. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 55-71.
3. Erdal Jordan, Mery (1998). La narrativa fanástica. Evolución del género y su relación con las concepciones del lenguaje. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert/Iberoamericana.
4. Fine, Ruth (2000). La desautomatización en literatura. Gaithesburg: Hispamérica.
5. Fine Ruth (2012). "Epilogue: a Study on Celestino antes del alba", in Celestino antes del alba by Reinaldo Arenas. Trans. Uri Ben David. Jerusalem: Carmel Publishing House, pp. 248-261 (en hebreo).
6. Flores, Angel (1955) "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction", en Hispania, Vol. XXXVIII, pp.187-201.


1. Barthes, Roland (1970). S/Z. Paris: Ed. du Seuil.
2. Bakhtin, Milkhail Mikhailovich (1992). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 259-422.
3. Becker, Udo (1994). The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols. New York: Continuum.
4. Booth, Wayne (1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
5. ------- (1992). A Rhethoric of Irony. Chicago: The Univ. Of Chicago Press, pp. 1-72.
6. Cirlot, Juan Eduardo (1958). Diccionario de símbolos tradicionales. Barcelona: Luis Miracle Ed.
7. Cuddon, J. A. (1987). A Dictionary of Literary Terms. London: Penguin.
8. Culler, Jonathan (1985). Structuralist Poetics. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
9. Diccionario de Literatura Universal (1985). Madrid: Ediciones Generales Anaya.
10. Ducrot, O. y T. Todorov (1978). Diccionario enciclopédico de las ciencias del lenguaje. Madrid: Siglo XXI. (Hay ed. en inglés y francés).
11. Ewen, Joseph (1980). (en hebreo) A Dictionary of Literary Terms. Jerusalem: Akademon.
12. Frye, Northrop (1973). Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
13. Genette, Gérard (1992). Architext. An Introduction. Berkeley: California Univ. Press.
14. ---------- (1997). Palimpsests. Lincoln: Nebraska Univ. Press.
15. Hühn, Peter et al. (eds). The living Handbook of Narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press. URL &eq; hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn
16. Jung, C. G. (1975). Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
17. Pérez-Rioja, J. A. (1962). Diccionario de símbolos y mitos. Madrid: Tecnos.
18. VV.AA. (1970). Comunicaciones Número 8. Buenos Aires: Ed. Tiempo Contemporáneo.
19. Wellek, René (1968). Conceptos de crítica literaria. Venezuela: Univ. Central de Venezuela.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 60 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 0 %
Assignments 40 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
The detailed readings appear in the complete syllabus.