Narrative and Times of Trouble

Anthropology 297 Section 6

Winter 2005

Tuesday 2-5 p.m. Haines 314

Instructors:

Elinor Ochs (eochs@anthro.ucla.edu) Haines Hall 318a; 310-825-0984

Douglas Hollan (dhollan@anthro.ucla.edu) Haines Hall 397; 310-825-3366

Course Readings

Texts (Books available at UCLA bookstore and through YRL Graduate Reserves)

•Barker, Pat. Regeneration. Plume Books, 1991.

•Bruner, Jerome. Making Stories : Law Literature Life, Harvard University Press, 2003.

•Capps, Lisa & Ochs, Elinor. Constructing Panic. Harvard University Press, 1995.

• Mattingly, Cheryl. Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots. Cambridge University Press, 1998.

• Mattingly, Cheryl & Garro, Linda, eds. Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing. University of California Press, 2000.

• Ochs, Elinor & Capps, Lisa. Living Narrative. Harvard University Press, 2001.

• Stern, Daniel. The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life. W. W. Norton & Co., 2004.

• Todorov, Tzvetan. Hope and Memory: Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Princeton University Press, 2004

Packet of Readings (Westwood Copies, 1001 Gayley Ave., Suite 104; Tel.: 310-208-3233)

Supplies

Transparencies

January 11 Introduction

How can linguistic and psychocultural anthropology inform each other in relation to narrative and times of trouble? What are the tensions that inhere in attempting to bridge these analytic perspectives?

January 18 The Sufferer’s Perspective in Times of Trouble

• Capps, Lisa & Ochs, Elinor. Constructing Panic. Harvard University Press, 1995.

Assignment:

Everyone in Class: Formulate an issue or question arising from an assertion in the reading that will generate an interesting discussion. Send the question and corresponding relevant passages from the readings to the instructors as text in the body of an e-mail message and also as an attachment by Monday, January 17, 10AM.

January 25 Narrative Sense-Making

•Bruner, Jerome. Making Stories : Law Literature Life, Harvard University Press, 2003.

• Garro, Linda & Mattingly, Cheryl. “Narrative as Construct and Construction” in C. Mattingly & L. Garro, eds. Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing. University of California Press, 2000. Pp. 1-49.

• Ochs, Elinor & Capps, Lisa. Chapter 1 "A Dimensional Approach to Narrative," in Living Narrative. Harvard University Press, 2001. Pp. 1-58.

Assignment:

Group A:

1) Discuss a passage from the readings. (Reproduce passage on an overhead transparency to show in class.)

2) Illustrate, amplify, and/or critique the passage with narrative data

Group B:

Responsible for addressing the issues/questions and data analyses presented by Group A.

February 1 The Phenomenology of Time in Narrative I

• Morson, G. S. “Prelude,” Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. Yale University Press, 1994. Pp. 17-41.

• Ochs, Elinor & Capps, Lisa. Chapters 4 & 5 "The Unexpected Turn" & "Experiential Logic," in Living Narrative. Harvard University Press, 2001. Pp. 130-200.

Assignment:

Group B:

1) Discuss a passage from the readings. (Reproduce passage on an overhead transparency to show in class.)

2) Illustrate, amplify, and/or critique the passage with narrative data from outside the readings for this week.

Group A:

Responsible for addressing the issues/questions and data analyses presented by Group B.

February 8 The Phenomenology of Time in Narrative II

Stern, Daniel. The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life. W. W. Norton & Co., 2004.

Class Guest: Jason Throop (UCLA)

Assignment:

Everyone in Class: Formulate an issue or question arising from an assertion in the reading that will generate an interesting discussion. Send the question and corresponding relevant passages from the readings to the instructors as text in the body of an e-mail message and also as an attachment by Monday, February 7, 10AM.

February 15 Remembering through Narrative I

• Todorov, Tzvetan. Hope and Memory: Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Princeton University Press, 2004, Pp. 113-228.

Class Guest: Dr. Robert Pynoos (UCLA)

Assignment:

Everyone in Class: Formulate an issue or question arising from an assertion in the reading that will generate an interesting discussion. Send the question and corresponding relevant passages from the readings to the instructors as text in the body of an e-mail message and also as an attachment by Monday, February 14, 10AM.

February 22 Remembering through Narrative II (2-hr. seminar: 2-4 p.m.)

• Good, Byron & Good, Mary-Jo Del Vecchio. "'Fiction' and 'Historicity' in Doctors’ Stories." in C. Mattingly & L. Garro, eds. Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing. University of California Press, 2000. Pp. 50-69.

• Garro, Linda. “Cultural Knowledge as Resource in Illness Narratives” in C. Mattingly & L. Garro, eds. Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing. University of California Press, 2000. Pp. 70-87.

• Prager, Jeffrey. Chapter 1: “ MS. A. and the Problem of Misremembering” in Presenting the Past: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Misremembering. Harvard University Press, 1998, Pp. 17-58.

Class Guest: Dr. Jeffrey Prager (UCLA)

Assignment:

Everyone in Class: Formulate an issue or question arising from an assertion in the reading that will generate an interesting discussion. Send the question and corresponding relevant passages from the readings to the instructors as text in the body of an e-mail message and also as an attachment by Monday, February 21, 10AM.

March 1 Narrative Fragmentation

• Barker, Pat. Regeneration. Plume Books, 1991.

• O’Brien, Tim. “How To Tell a True War Story,” The Things They Carried. Penguin Books,1990. Pp. 75-91.

Assignment:

Everyone in Class: Formulate an issue or question arising from an assertion in the reading that will generate an interesting discussion. Send the question and any relevant passages from the readings to the instructors as text in the body of an e-mail message and also as an attachment by Monday, February 28, 10AM.

March 8 Narrative, Healing, and Experience

• Mattingly, Cheryl. Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots. Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Class Guest: Jill Mitchell (UCLA)

Assignment:

Group A:

1) Discuss a passage from the readings. (Reproduce passage on an overhead transparency to show in class.)

2) Illustrate, amplify, and/or critique the passage with narrative data from outside the readings for this week.

Group B:

Responsible for addressing the issues/questions and data analyses presented by Group A.

March 15 Selves in Motion

• Garro, Linda. “Cultural, Social and Self Processes in Narrating Troubling Experiences,” Forthcoming in C. Mattingly & J. Uffe, eds. Narrative and Society. University of Aarhus Press, In Press.

•Wikan, Unni. “With Life in One’s Lap: The Story of an Eye/I (or Two)” in C. Mattingly & L. Garro, eds. Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing. University of California Press, 2000. Pp. 212-236.

• Broyard, Anatole. "Intoxicated by my Illness," "Toward a Literature of Illness," "The Patient Examines the Doctor," "Journal Notes May-September 1990," "A Style for Death," Intoxicated by My Illness: And Other Writings on Life and Death. Potter, 1992. Pp. 3-68, 85-88.

• Gates, Henry L. “White like Me,” The New Yorker, 1996, 17 June, Pp. 66-81. (reprinted as "The Passing of Anatole Broyard" in H.L. Gates, Jr. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man. Random House, 1997. Pp. 180-214.)

Assignment:

Group B:

1) Discuss a passage from the readings. (Reproduce passage on an overhead transparency to show in class.)

2) Illustrate, amplify, and/or critique the passage with narrative data from outside the readings for this week.

Group A:

Responsible for addressing the issues/questions and data analyses presented by Group B Teams.

Class Requirements

1. Presentations of issues, questions and/or data analyses relevant to weekly readings.

2. Write a 10-12 page (double spaced) paper or proposal that lays out how narrative analysis can illuminate a research topic of interest to you. (The 10-12 pages does not include the bibliography.)

Two copies of paper or proposal, (hard copy only - no e-mail or fax copies) due Monday March 21 10AM, one copy in each instructor's mailbox, 341 Haines Hall.