It seems quite natural to capture past times by way of narrative representation. Certain philosophers and historians even claimed that time is inherently narrative and therefore articulated best in the form of narrations. But is it even possible to narrate time? What kind of translation is that? And, above all, what are the costs of, and the resistances to, such a translation?
Objective
This course means to train the students' ability to thoroughly read and critically penetrate literary texts. Its second aim is to introduce basic problems of narrative representation, above all the relation between temporal development and narrative processes. The third aim is to develop the question of whether literature is, unlike historiography, aware of the fundamental unavailability of time, as that of how such knowledge is expressed.
Literature
Readings may include: Nietzsche, Storm, Thomas Bernhard, Max Frisch, Paul Ricoeur, Hayden White, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht.