Course Description, Spring 2024
Syllabus is in Files.
This course introduces the student to fiction from the 20th and 21st centuries, with an emphasis on the relation between art and life. No prior experience in reading or writing fiction is assumed; we will begin with vocabulary terms so as to specify what the stuff is made of, how it is arranged, and some good words for thinking about it. The term “Point of view,” for instance, is both a literary device and ethical terrain.
We will (1) discuss themes, with particular attention to the representation of bodies and gender; and the relation between art and life, (2) form—which is another type of body: how the thing looks on the page, why a last line matters as a last line, and why a list is (or ain’t) a story—and hopefully, (3) tone, which is the hardest thing to hear in literature -- or any form of text, including the one on your phone.
Authors may include recent Nobel Prize Winner Alice Munro, unrecent Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway, and future Nobel Prize Winner Ali Smith. Namwali Serpell is brilliant and among us now, and wrote me back when I asked her something about a story we will read. We’ll read someone from this neck of the woods who changed the course of American fiction (Raymond Carver), and connect his “What We Talk About When We Talk About love” to the love story of Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain.”
Learning outcomes: You will have learned essential vocabulary terms and concepts; you will emerge with a new or improved ability to close read, which will make you able to be a better human/advocate/listener. Too, you will have tasted some of the best fiction being produced today.
Grades will be based on papers, quizzes, and exams. Below are the novels to buy in hard copy (paperback); electronic copies are not acceptable. A course reader will also be available.
Ali Smith, *How To Be Both*
Claire Messud, *The Woman Upstairs*