ENG1980-01.Special Topics: Short Fiction.J16.Seru,Davu

Davu Seru

Document Type

Syllabi

School

CLA

Department

ENG

Course Subject

ENG

Course Number

1980

Course Section

01

Course Title

Special Topics: Short Fiction

Academic Term and Year

Winter 2016

Credits

4.00

Hamline Plan Letter

H

Area of Study

ENG

Course Description

A survey of the short story form across historical and cultural contexts. For English majors and minors, the course can count as a literature survey (12xx). To quote the title of a work by pianist-composer Thelonius Monk, here we take a look at America in all of its “ugly beauty.” Our interest is in American life below the surface and that which pretends to be above the fray. We will “act locally and think globally,” examining the narrative conventions of folktales, flash fiction, micro-stories, the short story and the novella within their broader historical and cultural contexts. The short form allows us to read a wide variety of works over the summer term, including early Native American and African American folk tales, Herman Melville and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the modernism of Charles Chesnutt, William Faulker, Flannery O’Connor and James Baldwin, and contemporary writers such as Gayl Jones, Henry Dumas, Raymond Carver, Junot Diaz, ZZ Packer and Sherman Alexis. The class meets daily and students will come to class with short, one-page reflections that will help to guide classroom discussion.

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