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n

o

Committee 

Senate Com 

From

................................................................................ 

Undergraduate Studies 

1980-06-18 

Date

..................................................................................................... 

Action taken by the Senate Committee on Undergraduate 

Studies at its meeting of 3 June 1980 gives rise to the 

following motions: 

MOTION 1 

That Senate approve and recommend approval to the 

Board of Governors the continued offering of the 

following courses: 

?

-1

G.S. 402-5 - Myths, Fictions, 

Histories: Telling 

the Truth About 

Experience, I 

G.S. 403-5 - 

Myth 

s,

Fictions, Histories: Telling 

the Truth About 

Experience, II 

Note - 

Subject to approval of the courses for continued offering 

it is proposed that G.S. 402 and G.S. 403 be next offered in 

the Fall semester 80-3 and the Spring semester 81-1 respectively. 

MOTION 2 

That Senate delegate to the Senate Committee on 

Undergraduate Studies authority to approve for 

further offering General Studies courses that 

have been authorized for initial one-time offering 

and have proven successful. 

Note - 

Under such circumstances the proposal from the Faculty of 

Interdisciplinary Studies Undergraduate Curriculum Committee 

would still be circulated to the Curriculum Committees of other 

Faculties for general response and for specific comment on over- 

lap prior to consideration in SCUS. 

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

MEMORANDUM

SCUs b3

To ........... . ...

....

Mr.. I-1.....M ...... 

Evans ........ Regi.s.t.r.a.r 

.................. Se.c.re.tar.y .... to ..... the .... Senate ........... ...........

Committee on Undergraduate 

Sub

ject.... .......

Studies ................................................................... 

From..

.J. Blanchet,Ad.thtr.tiv. 

Assistant, 

Facultyof Interdisciplinary 

Studies. 

Date .....

May....2/80 .. 

Re: New Course Proposals: 

• G.S. 402-5 . 

, Myths, Fictions, Histories: Telling the? 

Truth about Experience, I. 

G.S. 403-5, Myths, Fictions, Histories: Telling the? 

Truth about Experience, II. 

Attached are the new course proposals noted above. While these 

items are presented as new course proposals, they were in fact 

approved by Senate on January 10/77, and were offered sequentially 

in 77-3 and 78-1. In preparation for this earlier presentation 

to Senate, these courses were circulated to other faculties 

for overlap consideration on April 12/76, and were submitted to 

the Library on the same date. 

These courses were presented to the Faculty of Interdisciplinary 

Studies Undergraduate Curriculum Committee with the request that 

they be approved for re-offering, and such approval was given 

by this committee on April 1/80. Would you please place 

G.S. 402-5 and G.S. 403-5 on the next agenda of the Senate Committee 

on Undergraduate Studies for that committee's consideration. 

<ZLJST

JMB

Attachments. 

/

?

l.C. %-6-

SENATE 

COMMITTEE ON

UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES? 

NEW COURSE PROPOSAL FORM 

•1. 

Calendar Information 

Abbreviation 

Code: G. S. 

Course Number: 

Title of Course: 

Myths, Fictions, Histories: 

Department: ? 

- - - - 

402

Credit Hours:_____ Vector:______ 

telling the truth about experience. I. 

Calendar Description pf Course: 

The differences and commonalities we find in myths 

fictions 

and

his t ori es 

attempts to tell the truth about experience, and the kind of truth they tell. 

Nature of Course 

?

Seminar 

Prerequisites (or special instructions): 

Open to advancedlundergraduates, graduates, or by permission of instructor 

What course (courses), if any, s 

.eing 

dropped from the calendar if this course is 

approved: 

None 

2. Scheduling 

How frequently will the course be offered? 

About once every three years 

Semester in which the course will first be 

offered? 

?

1980-3 

Which of 

your present faculty 

wcuid 

be available to make the proposed offering 

possible? 

K. Egan, Faculty of Education 

3.

Objectives of the Course 

To introduce students to some of the distinctions and commonalities among three 

major ways of making sense of human events and of trying to express that sense 

as truly as possible. To introduce students to a set of very abstract concepts - 

e.g. plot, paradigm, mimesis - which can be useful in any study of attempts to tell 

some truth about experience in a narrative. 

4.

Budgetary and Space Requirements (for information only) 

What additional resources will be required in the following areas: 

Faculty 

Staff 

Library. 

Audio Visual 

Space 

Equipment 

5. Apprc 

Date: 

val

ç2p 

Dartmenc Chairman ? 

Dean ? 

Chairman, SCUS 

SCUS 73-34b:-- (When completing this form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a. 

Attach course outline). 

SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES 

NEW

COURSE PROPOSAL FORM 

Calendar Information ? 

Department: - - 

--

Abbreviation Code: 

?

Course Number: 

?

.403 

Credit Hours: 

5

?

Vector:________ 

Title of Course: 

Myths, Pictions, Histories: telling the truth about experience. II. 

Calendar Description of Course: 

The differences and commonalities we find in myths; fictions; and histories; 

attempts to tell the truth' about experience, and the kind of truth they tell. 

A brief history of the study of myths, fictions, and histories. 

Nature of Course 

Seminar 

Prerequisites (or special instructions): 

Open to advanced undergraduates, graduates, or by permission of instructor 

What course (courses), if any, 

Is

.elng dropped from the calendar it this course is 

approved: 

2. Scheduling 

None 

How frequently will the course be offered? 

About once every three years 

Semester in which the course will first be offered? 

1981-1 

Which of your present faculty wc.1s be available to make the proposed offering 

possible? ? 

..

.

K. Egan, Faculty of Education 

Objectives of the Course 

To introduce students to some of the distinctions and commonalities among three 

major ways of making sense of human events and of trying to express that sense 

as truly as possible. To introduce students to a set of concepts - e.g. fact, 

event, narrative unit - which can be useful in any study of attempts to tell some 

truth about experience in a narrative. 

4. Budgetary and Space Requirements (for information only) 

What additional resources will be required in the following areas: 

Faculty 

Staff 

Library 

Audio Visual 

Space 

Equipment 

5. Approval 

Date;_____________________ 

is ? 

Depa'Chairman 

JU3

Dean 

?

Chairman, SCUS 

SCUS 73-34b:-- (When completing this form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a. 

Attach course outline). 

.

COURSE OUTLINE 

G.S. 402: MYTHS, FICTIONS, AND HISTORIES: telling the truth about experience. I 

G.S. 40.3: MYTHS, FICTIONS, AND HISTORIES: telling the truth about experience. II 

All art is a lie which helps us get closer to the truth, Picasso said. 

And what is truth? Myths, fictions, and histories e 

?

claim to tell the 

truth in some way. Myths claim to tell the deepest truths, those that lie 

hidden beyond the surface of things accessible to our senses. Fictions 

d

eliberately lie in order to tell more profound truths than literal 

reporting would allow. Histories seek to tell the truth ab out 4at..wa& 

de*e-r--shew4r*4 

the real past that caused the present. 

The purpose of these courses is to explore the ways myths, fictions, 

and histories try, and have tried, to tell their truths about experience, 

and to see what kinds of truths they try to tell. We will be concerned 

with ways in which their claims to tell the truth are different, overlap, 

or compete. 

G.S. 402 will be offered during Fall 1980, and G' * S. 403 during Spring 

1981. They are designed so that students may take eiher or both. The 

emphasis during the first course will be on more general distinctions among 

myths, fictions and histories and on their commonalities and competing 

claims to tell the truth. The emphasis in the second course will be on 

the historical development of fictions and histories from myths 

in

the

ancient near-east, and on how myths, fictions, and histories are plotted 

and use facts and events in their composition. We will, that is, in the 

second course approach much the same set of issues from different perspectives 

from those taken in the first course, and we will use different readings. 

G.S. 402 Readings will be selected from: 

?

Brnislaw Malinowski, 

"Myth in Primitive Psychology;" Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ejigj 

Aristotle, Poetics; Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; 

Robert Canary and Henry Kozicki (Eds.), The Writing of History; Hayden V. 

White, Metahjstoy; Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and_Histy; Geoffrey Kirk, 

_My

çh: 

Its Nature and Meaning ...; Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural_Anthropo1qgy, 

The

Savage Mind, The Raw and the Cooked; Roland Barthes, "Myth Today;" 

Vico, The New Science; Northrop Frye, "New directions from old;" Edmund 

Leach, "Genesis as Myth;" Vladimir Propp, Morpho1o9yoftheFolktah; 

Philip Rha, "The Myth and the Powerhouse;" M. I. Finley, "Myth, memory, 

and history;" Berte,Loff, "Fiction, history, myth;" 

G.S. 403 Readings will be selected from: Bruno Snell, The 

Discovery

of the_Mind; E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational; H.D.F. Kilto, 

Poiesis; J. Finlay, Four Stases of Greek Thought; Carl L. Decker, "What 

are historical facts?"; Norman Friedman, "Forms of the Plot"; K. Egan, 

"What is a plot?", "Progress in historiography"; Hayden V. White, "The 

Burden of history", "The historical text as literary artifact"; Tzvet,an 

Toderov, The Poetics of Prose; F.M. Cornford, From    

?

tOP1osh; 

Henry Frankfort, et al., Before Philosophy; F. Nietzsche, The Use and 

Abuse of History. 

Reirements: (For each course) A major paper on a topic to be agreed on with 

instructor, a draft of which 

will be

due eight weeks into the 

semester; an introduction to a class discussion of at least one 

reading; one 

shorter

paper comparing aspets of myths, fictions 

and hi.

stori 

?

.

o

Some publications of instructor related to the course topics: 

K. Egan, "Mythical and historical reference to the past." Clio, June 1973, 

pp.

291-307. 

"From myth to.mythos." Western Humanities Review, Spring 1978, 

pp. 99-120. 

"What is a plot?" New Literary History, Spring 1978, 

pp.

455-74. 

"Thucydides, tragedian", in Robert Canary and Henry Kozicki (Eds.), 

The Writing of History. Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin University 

Press, 1978, pp. 63-92. 

"Progress in historiography". Clio, Winter 1978, pp. 195-228. 

-. Educational Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. 

(A four stage model -- Mythic, Romantic, Philosophic, Ironic -- of 

how we make sense of experience in increasingly sophisticated ways.) 

• (M

yth

and

History. Ph.D. dissertation, on the development of 

historiography out of myth in ancient Greece.) 

K. Egan and S. Egan. Review of Jeffrey Mehlman, A Structural Study of 

in West Coast Review, October 1976, pp. 52-3. 