Instr:                  James Liddy:
Office:               CRT 517,  229-5441
Office hours:     After class or by appointment.

Course Information:        4 weeks Summer Session  beginning July 24, 2000
                                       Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs  1:00-3:15pm  BOL 281

Course Description

The course is a selected reading of American short stories and narratives from the 1920's to the present. Plot, character, point of view, and voice will be scrutinised in the making of short fiction. Poetic quality, vision, insight, language and rhythm will be seen as entrances to good prose writing. Writing your own story, with the instructor's consent, may be substituted for the essay. Good luck.
 

Requirements:

Paper, 8 typed pages, due on August 9; topic: any of the short fiction in the course or any comparative American short fiction. Grades will be apportioned: paper 40%, exam 40%, discussion 20%. Students will be allowed two excused absences; barring emergencies no incompletes will be given.
 

Assigned Texts:
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk about Love
Stuart Dybek Childhood and Other Nightmares
Mary McCarthy, Memoirs Of A Catholic Girlhood
Carson McCullers The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
James Purdy, The Candles Of Your Eyes
Jean Toomer, Cane

Schedule of Texts:
July 24: Introduction
July 25: Discussion of short fiction; "Hands," "Paper Pills," "Mother," Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
July 26: "The Philosopher," "Adventure," "Respectability," "The Strength of God," Anderson
July 27: "The Teacher." "Loneliness," "The Untold Lie," "Drink," Anderson
July 31: "Death," "Sophistication," "Departure," Anderson
August 1: "Why Don't You Dance," "Sacks," "Tell The Women We're Going," "The Third Thing That Killed My Father
                Off," Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
August 2: "A Serious Talk," "Everything Stuck To Him," "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," Carver
August 3: "Some of These Days," "Summer Tidings," "Mud Toe The Cannibal," "How I Became A Shadow," James
                 Purdy.The Candles Of Your Eyes
August 7: "Dawn," "The Candles Of Your Eyes." Purdy. "Karintha," "Becky," "Fern."Jean Toomer, Cane
August 8: "Esther," "Blood-Burning Moon," Toomer.
August 9-10: Mary McCarthy, Memoirs Of A Catholic Girlhood
August 14: McCullers, "The Jockey," "A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud." "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" in
       The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
August 15:selection from Dybeck Childhood and Other Nightmares
August 16: Examination on the texts of the course
August 17: Finish up, hand back papers, party?