Before Literature

Sheila J. Nayar is Professor of English, Communication and Media Studies at Greensboro College, North Carolina, USA.

Before Literature is a clear and accessible guide that offers a fundamentally different way of thinking about narrative, but also discloses the "what" and "why" of literature, leading to a much deeper overall understanding and appreciation of its significance.

Denaturalizing Literacy 2. The Story Behind Before Literature 3. Existence Without Inscription 4. Myth and the Mythical, Epic and the Epical 5. Why Pre-Lit Matters 6. But There Is Always a But... 7. A Beginning with No Definitive Beginning 8. A Digression on the "Once Upon a Time..." of Star Wars 9. Beginning In Medias Res 10. Ending Anti-In Medias Res-and Pro-Status Quo 11. "And This Happened... And Then This... And Then..." 12. Epic Examples of Episodic Epics 13. [[Boxes] within Boxes] within Boxes 14. Flashbacks, Masala Style 15. Lists, Lists, and More Lists 16. In Defense of Clichés and the Formulaic (Yes, Really!) 17. Repeat, Recycle-and Repeat (and Recycle) 18. Whence the "Traditional"? 19. The Acoustic Landscape 20. Ancestors and Alienation 21. Alienation and Participation 22. The Agon of Audiences-But, Even More, of Actors 23. Blood and Guts 24. Violence + Veneration = A Polarized World 25. When Exteriority Is Not a Bad Thing 26. But, What of Art? What of Aesthetics? 27. Oral Embodiment 28. Superhuman Vessels 29. Is Anti-Psychological Necessarily Unreal? 30. Animating Abstract Knowledge 31. The Absence of Irony, the Pleasure of Parody 32. Is There an Oral Chronosense? 33. Do Intellectuals Suffer from Alphabetically Literate Elitism? 34. Why the Humanities Matter-to All of Us