Interdisciplinary Arts 0118 - Crafting American Short Story

This course introduces students to the evolving artistry of the short story in the United States. Designed both for those interested in creative writing and in literary history and criticism, the course focuses on the short story as a synthesis of personal imagination, craft, culture and history. Covering a wide variety of short stories from the nineteenth century to the present, we'll discuss fiction by writers from diverse cultural traditions in relation to theme, social context, style, tone, characterization, dialogue, point of view, and evocation of time and place. Stories by Poe, Twain, Crane, Freeman, Dunbar-Nelson, Wharton, Anderson, Hemingway, O'Connor, Singer, Bradbury, Baldwin, Cheever, Tan, Leavitt, O'Brien, Mukherjee, Yamamoto, Woolf, and others. Our schedule will be divided between discussion sessions of assigned short story readings and writing workshops in which class members will read their own writing in small groups. Students will be required to keep a journal of short critical responses focused on stories assigned for each class; complete a series of short creative writing exercises; develop and complete a final writing project in the form of either an original short story or an extended critical essay.

Culture, Humanities, and Languages Multiple Cultural Perspectives Writing and Research