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Contemporary U.S.-American Short Fiction

Veranstaltungstyp: Seminar

Ort: 41/215

Zeiten: Mo. 08:30 - 10:00 (wöchentlich)

Beschreibung: The aim of this seminar is twofold:

- to analyse and discuss major themes, topics and strategies of current U.S.-American short stories
- to reflect on and increase our competence in discussing the form, content and meaning of literary fiction in general, and the short story in particular.

Requirements:

The course is designed for bachelor students who already possess a good basic knowledge in working with literary texts, e.g. basic terminology and technical terms, basic concepts in narratology, some contextual knowledge about dominant interests in current writings. (For more on the latter you might want to look at sites like http://lithub.com/ and similar online sources).

You will read a minimum of 10 stories over the course of the seminar. Some of the material will be freely selected, some material will be assigned beforehand.
Students will work in teams of two or three to prepare background material, additional sources, and factual information about specific stories, as well as compose short introductory analyses and interpretations for these stories. The additional material and the introductory writings will be collected and made available in an online repository (Wiki, Blog) and should be put to use for presentations and preparing class room discussions.

Students are strongly encouraged to obtain the following volume in advance and make themselves familiar with the stories in the collection!

Ben Marcus Ed. New American Stories. New York: Vintage, 2015 (ca. 10 EUR)