From
SENATE COMMITTEEON UNDERGPPJDUPJTE STUDIES
Date..
15thDecnber, 1976
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY vS4*
MEMORANDUM ?
26 /F k
Action taken by the Senate Committee on Undergraduate
Studies at its meeting of December 14, 1976 gives rise to the
following motion:
MOTION
That Senate approve, and recommend approval by the
Board of Governors, the new course proposals for G.S. 402-5 and
G.S. 403-5, as set forth in
S.76-183,.
NOTE -
These two courses are approved for offering once only.
Any subsequent offering would require re-submission of a proposal
i
sincluding evaluation of the courses as taught in 77-3 and 78-1.
c
Daniel R. Birch
ams
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
S C US 74-51
.
?
MEMORANDUM
Mr. H. M. Evans,
?
.
?
S
Subject
..............
.
.
G.S .
. 4.02.-5andG....S...,,40.3.75.,
Myths, Fictions, Histories - making
(I.S.C. 76-4).
From:
J. Blanchet, Secretary,
acuity of Interdisciplinary Stu4.es
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.
Date...... .. .....
Dec embe.r...6./.76.. ....................................................
Attached are the above-noted course proposals; would you
please place them on the agenda of the Senate Committee on Undergraduate
Studies for consideration.
Attachments.
S
0
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
MEMORANDUM
Dr. D.R. Birch, Chairman
SCUS
Overlap Consideration -
G.S.
Subiect....
40'2-
... 5á'nd....G'°.'S.........1O'3'-5
?
...............
From.., Sheila Roberts, Secretary
Faculty of Arts Curriculum Commit
Date..
December
6, 1976
Further to my' memo of October
28, 1976
the Faculty of Arts
Curriculum Committee at its meeting of November
4, 1976
amended
follows:
the motion regarding G.S.
402-5
and G.S.
4
03-5
as
"That on the condition that courses G.S. 402-5
and G.S. 403-5 are both offered on a once only
basis 'theris no objection to the overlap with
courses in the Faculty of Arts."
S. Roberts
cc. H.M. Evan ,s,Registrar
J. Blar,chet, I.D.S.
:fll
5. Approval
Date:_____________________
Department Chairman
X
IL
?
/t
Dean
J? ?
7
Chairman,
SCUS
.
..
.-
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
NEW
COURSE PROPOSAL FORM
1.
Calendar Information ?
Department:_______________________
Abbreviation Code:
4..
Course Number: 4-7.. Credit Hours:
?
Vector:
_-i.-.-
-'
Title of
Course:
MYTHS, FICTIONS, HISTORIES - making sense of experience. I
Calendar Description of Course:
The main distinguishing characteristics of myths, fictions, and histories as modes
of making sense of experience; how they differ, what they have in common, where
they compete; a brief history of the study of myths, fictions, and histories.
Nature of Course
?
Seminar, with some lectures.
Prerequisites (or special instructions):
Graduate or advanced undergraduate standing.
Pe'
III
,Jj ,
?
i
it it
What course
(courses), if any, is being
dropped from
the calendar if this course is
approved:
?
None
2.
Scheduling ?
I
How frequently will
the course be offered?
Once only
Semester in
which the
course will first be
offered?
?
1977-3
Which of your
present faculty would be available to make the proposed offering
possible? ?
K. Egan, Faculty of Education
3.
Objectives of the Course
a) To introduce students to some of the distinctions and
coimnonalities among three major ways of organizing, and so making sense of, human
events; to introduce them to some methods of inquiry presently used in trying to
make sense of the ways people have made, and make, sense of the experience of being
human in the world. (Appendix lis an outline of the course.) b) the course is experi-
mental and will be taught only once. c) It will no doubt overlap with courses in
philosophy of history, theories of fictions, mythologies, epistemology; but it should
4. Budgetary and Space
Requirements (for information only)
?
not do so to any great
What additional resources will be required in the following ar)Tt
Faculty None
Staff None
Library None
Audio Visual
None
Space
?
None
Equipment
?
None
SCUS 73-34b:-
(When nm
?
ng
t
his form, for ins'
ietione see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a.
Attach course outline).
Appendix I
Outline of Course
[I
Title of Course: MYTHS, FICTIONS, AND HISTORIES - making sense of experience. I
The course will be organized around a set of readings, with occasional
lectures. Below is an outline of the readings and lecture topics:
1.
Myths
Reading: Bronislaw Malinowski, "Myth in primitive psychology"
Lecture: A brief survey of inquiries into myth. (Classical Greeks'
reactions to the myths inherited from their ancestors; the
effects of Christian dogma on myth-study; Vico's, The New
Science; Enlightenment reactions to myth; 19th and early
20th century studies - Herder, Muller, Tylor, Lang, Fraser.)
Reading: Ernst Cassirer, Language and Myth
Lecture:
?
20th century studies of myth. (Indicating the influence
of anthropology on other areas of inquiry and expression,
beginning with influences on Fraser, then Fraser's influence
on students of literature; the Cambridge "classical
anthropologists", Harrison, Cornford, Murray; the study of
language and "mind" and their influence on the study of myth;
leading to an introduction to Levi-Strauss' brand of structur-
alism.)
Readings: to introduce Structuralism -
Edmund Leach: "Genesis as Myth"
Levi-Strauss: "The Structural Study of Myth"
Lecture: Levi-Strauss and the structural study of myth. (Relevant
principles of Saussurian linguistics; use by Jacobson;
development by Levi-Strauss to the study of Kinship, and
then to the study of myth.)
Readings: Levi-Strauss: "Overture" to The Raw and the Cooked.
2.
Fictions
Reading: ?
Aristotle, The Poetics
Lecture: Myth and mythos. (A playful attempt to indicate areas of
similarity between a Levi-Straussian view of the structure
of a corpus of myths and the Aristotelian view of a plot.)
Readings: Frank Kerinode, The Sense of an Ending.
Warner Berthoff, "Fiction, History, Myth"
Northrop Frye, "New Directions from Old"
Lecture: ?
Structuralism in literature. (Indicating the variety of
"-A
2.
• attempts to draw ideas and tools from linguistics; Propp
and Russian formalists; French structuralism, extending
Levi-Straussian analyses to various kinds of literary
texts; Roland Barthes and semiology.)
Reading: Roland Barthes: "Myth today"
3.
?
Histories:
Readings: Philip Rhav, "The Myth and the Powerhouse"
Hayden V. White, "The Burden of History"
Nietszche, The Use and Abuse of History
Lecture: Progress in historiography. (The development of increasingly
sophisticated methods of narrating history and the progressive
overthrow of disabling presupposition in doing it. (as in the
attached article "Progress in historiography"])
Readings: Carl G. Hempel, "Explanation in Science and History"
A. Donagan, "The Popper-Hempel Theory
.
reconsidered."
Lecture: Covering-Law and Son-of-Covering-Law. (The move from
Hempel's "covering law" model, to an interest in following
a narrative or story as a model of how historiography explains
events; the "poetics" of historiography.)
Readings: W.D. Gallie, "The Uses and Abuses of History," from Philosophy
and the Historical Understanding
M.I. Finley: "Myth, Memory, and History"
Lecture: Stories, facts, events and plots. (A summary of how some
of the units that are common to myths, fictions and histories
seem to operate differently in the different modes, and
what elements or functions they have in common; implications
for the status of the kind of sense each makes of experience.)
In outline, then, we will try to develop an understanding of some of the ways
that myths, fictions and histories "encode" experience. We will focus first
on distinguishing the different modes as clearly as possible in the time available,
and then consider elements that they have in common. As we deal with each mode
we will be making constant references back and forth to and from the others.
(Students who intend to take MYTHS, FICTIONS, AND HISTORIES II, will be encouraged
to read Herodotus' Histories over the Christmas break.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Below are just a few of the most directly useful works not
. ?
mentioned above, that might be recommended in order to follow up particular
interests:
Myths:
ed. Henry A. Murray, Myth and Mythmnaking
ed. Thomas Sebeok, Myth - a symposium
ed. John Middleton, Myth and Cosmos
Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality
Henry Frankfort, Before Philosophy
Geoffrey Kirk, 11th
C. Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind
Structural Anthropology
Mythologies
ed. E. Leach, The Structural Study of Myth and Totexrism
ed. P. Maranda, Mythology
R. Chase, Quest for Myth
.
?
Fictions:
Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism
Erich Auerbach, Mimesis
Roland Barthes, Mythologies
Elements of Semiology
T. Todorov, Graminaire du Decaineron
V.
Propp, Morphology of the Folktale
Gerald Prince, k Grammar of Stories
Scholes and Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative
Wayne Booth, The, Rhetoric of Fiction
ed. R.S. Crane, Critics and Criticism
R. Scholes, Structuralism in Literature
ed. Lemon and Reis, Russian Formalist Criticism
ed. S. Chatman, Approaches to Poetics
ed. J. Miller, Myth and Method
Histories:
• ?
ed. Stanley Diamond, Culture and History
A. Dante, Analytical Philosophy of History
W.
Dray.
?
oshy of 11istory
.-
2.
J.H. Plumb, The Death of the Past
ed. H. Meyerhoff, The Philosophy of History in Our Time
Isiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox
R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History
Arnaldo Momigliano, Studies in Historiography
Hayden V. White, Metahistoxy
ed. Fritz Stern, The Varieties of History
Myth and Literature: Myth and History: Literature and History:
Lilian Feder, Ancient Myth in Modern Poetry
Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods
Jesse Weston, From Ritual to Romance
ed. J. Vickery, Myth and Literature
Giambattista Vico, The New Science
W. Berthoff, Fictions and Events
J. Buckley, The'Triumph of Time
E.
R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational
F.
Neitzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man
S. Langer, Mind
S. Pepper, World Hypotheses
ed. I.M. Lewis, History . and Social Anthropology
E.H. Grombrich, Art and Illusion
Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History
D.L. Page, History and the Homeric Iliad
G.S. Kirk, Homer and the Epic
Lionel Pearson,. Early Ionian Historians
A.W. Gonime, The Greek Attitude to History and Poetry
0-
5. Approval
Date:_____
aç
/
•'
0
?
1
Department Chairman
Dean
?
Chairman, SCUS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
.NEV COURSE
PROPOSAL FORM
1.
Calendar information ?
Department:______________________
Abbreviation Code:
?
. Course Number:
4.
p
?
Credit Hours:" Vector:
Title of
of Course: MYTHS, FICTIONS, AND HISTORIES - making sense of experience, ii
Calendar Description of Course: What counts as an "event" in myths, fictions, and
histories? How are events determined in each mode, what do they have in common, how
do they differ? How are events "plotted" in myths, fictions, and histories? How does
the emplotment of events in the different modes determine the kind of sense made
from experience? What kinds of gross units are myths, fictions and histories -
i.e. how do we know we have reached the end of a myth, fiction, or history.
Nature of Course Seminar, with some lectures
Prerequisites (or special instructions):
Myths, Fictions, and Histories - making sense of experience, I .
What course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course is
approved:
None
2. Scheduling
How frequently will the course be offered?
?
Once only
Semester in which the course will first be offered? 1978-1
Which of your present faculty would be available to make the proposed offering
possible?
K. Egan, Faculty of Education
3.
Objectives of the Course a) To clarify for students the degree to which different
W ?
modes of inquiry and expression that use human events as their raw material are
empirically based and the degree to which the meaning composed from events or experience
is determined by the mindh formal requirements for sense-making; to clarify the
differences and commonalities and competitions in the claims made to "truth" in the three
modes. (Appendix
,
I is an outline of the Course) b) The course is experimental and will
be taught only once. c) It will possibly overlap with courses in philosophy of history,
4.
Budgetary and Space Requirements (for information only) theories of fictions, mythologie
What additional resources will be required
?
epistemology; but it should not
do so to any great extent.
Faculty ?
None
Staff ?
None
Library ?
None
Audio Visual None
Space ?
None
Equipment None
Attach
SCUS 73-34b:-
course outline).(When
completing this form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS
73-34a.
Appendix I
Outline of Course
Title of Course: MYTHS, FICTIONS, AND HISTORIES - making sense of experience. II
The course will be organized around a set of readings, with occasional
lectures. Below is an outline of the readings and lecture topics.
1.
From myth to history
The first section will focus on the shift from mythical to historical
modes of representing the past in ancient Greece.
Readings: Peter Winch; "Understanding a Primitive Society"
Steven Lukes, "Some Problems about Rationality"
K. Egan, "Mythical and historical reference to the past."
M.I. Finley, "Desperately Foreign"
Sections from: Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind
HDF Kitto, Poiesis
J. Finlay, Four Stages of Greek Thought
. ?
Lectures: Mythic survivals in Herodotus and Thucydides. [as in the
articles "Thucydides, Tragedian", and "Herodotus and
romantic historiography"]
From Homer to Thucydides. (Describing, with fairly lengthy
quotations, what changes are evident in the narratives of
Homer's account of the cosmogony and theogony, and Hesiod's,
logographors', and proto-physicists'; Cornford's thesis in
From Religion to Philosophy, and the flaws in that; what
happens to the plot of myths in logographic writings, and
Hippocrates and Thucydides.)
The purpose of this section is to clarify the distinction between myths
and histories, and to get a sharper sense of what a plot is and how it
works in a few ancient narratives.
2.
Facts, Events and Plots:
In this section we will deal in greater detail with the questions, What
is a fact? What is an Event? and What is a Plot?
Readings: Carl L. Becker, "What are historical facts?"
Norman Friedman, "Forms of the Plot"
Boris Tomashevsky, "Thematics"
S
.Roland Barthes, "An Introduction the Structural Analysis of
I Narrative"
Alan Dundes, "Trends in
Content
Analysis"
r
l
^
2
Tzvetan Toderov, "Structuràlisifl
and
Literature"
R.S. Crane, "The Concept of Plot
and
the Plot of
" Tom
Jones"
Harry Levin, "Some meanings of
'myth"
Lectures: What is a plot? (as in the attached article, "What is a plot?]
Fictions, Histories,
and
Reality. (The attempts to move
closer to representing "reality", and the effects on the forms
of fictions and histories; Auerbach'S thesis; Gombrich's
thesis; Frye's thesis; Idealist and pragmatist views of
history; the historiography in FinneganS Wake.)
Readings: Warner Berthoff, "Literature
and
the measure of 'Reality'"
William H. Gass, "Philosophy
and
the Form of Fiction"
"In terms of the toenail: fiction
and
the
figures of life"
3. ?
The Unirivited Guest - the mind
Two
lectures on: Points of Connection. (A playful attempt at
outlining connections among the diverse inquiries we have
looked at; Structuralism
and
psychoanalysis, with reference
to Lacan via Geoffrey Mehiman's Structural Study of
Autobiography - Proust, Leiris, Satre, and Levi-Strauss;
attempts to draw on linguistics, with reference to Gerald
Prince's, Grammar of Stories; various attempts to draw
on linguistics and Chornskian inferences about the mind to
enlighten the study of myths, fictions,
and
histories; the
universality of stories.)
40 ?
1
I ?
-
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Below are just a few of the most directly useful works not
?
?
• ?
mentioned above, that might be recommended
in
order to follow up particular
interests:
Myths:
ed. Henry A. Murray, Myth and Mythmaking
ed. Thomas Sebeok, Myth - a symposium
ed. John Middleton, Myth and Cosmos
Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality
Henry Frankfort, Before Philosophy
Geoffrey Kirk, Myth
C. Levi-Strauss, 'The Savage Mind
Structural Anthropology
Mythologies
ed. E. Leach, The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism
ed. P. Maranda, Mythology
R. Chase, Quest for Myth
?
.S ?
Fictions:
Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism
Erich Auerbach, Mimesis
Roland Barthes, ythologies
Elements of Semiology
T. Todorov, Grammaire du Decameron
V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale
Gerald Prince, A Grammar of Stories
Scholes and Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative
Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction
ed. R.S. Crane, Critics and Criticism
R. Scholes, Structuralism in Literature
ed. Lemon and Reis, Russian Formalist Criticism
ed. S. Chatman, Approaches to Poetics
ed.
J.
Miller,
Myth and Method
Histories:
ed. Stanley Diamond, Culture and History
A.
Dante, Analytical Philosophy of History
W, Dray, PhilosDphy of History
S
.
2.
J.H. Plumb, The Death of the Past
ed. H. Meyerhoff,: The Philosophy
of History in Our Time
Isiah Berlin,
The Hedgehog and the Fox
R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History
Arnaldo Momiglianó, Studies in Historiography
Hayden V. White, Metahistoiy
ed. Fritz Stern, The Varieties of History
Myth and Literature: Myth and History
Literature and Historyt
Lilian
Feder, Ancient Myth in Modern Poetry
Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods
Jesse Weston, From Ritual to Romance
ed.
J. Vickery, Myth and Literature
Giambattista Vico, The New Science
W. Berthoff, Fictions and Events
J. Buckley, The Triumph of Time
E. R. Dodds, The '
Greeks and the Irrational
F.
Neitzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man
S. Langer, Mind
S. Pepper, World Hypotheses
ed. I.M.
Lewis, History and Social Anthropology
E.H. Grombrich, Art and Illusion
Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History
D.L. Page, History and the Homeric Iliad
G.S. Kirk, Homer and the Epic
Lionel Pearson, Early Ionian Historians
A.W. Gonune, The Greek Attitude to History and Poetry
0
MYTHS, FICTIONS, AND HISTORIES - making sense of experience. I
MYTHS, FICTIONS, AND HISTORIES - making
sense
of experience. II
Preliminary note:
These experimental courses were conceived as a single course
running from September 1977 to April 1978. Because there is
no mechanism for organizing a single course over two semesters
I have submitted the proposal as for two courses, the first of
which is prerequisite to the second. I have also arranged things
so that the first course will form a coherent unit by itself.
