Short Story and American Identity

Short Story and American Identity

OSHER 334-001

Dates: Wednesdays: January 13 ? February 17 Time: 3:30 ? 5:00 pm Location: Online via Zoom Instructor: Robert Weibezahl Email: robertweibezahl@

Course Description:

The short story, often relegated a backseat to the novel, is a vibrant and essential form of storytelling in its own right. Many of our country's greatest writers have used short fiction to explore myriad themes, particularly fundamental questions about what it means to be an American--or if we can even lay claim to a single national identity. In each class we will discuss three stories, thematically rather than chronologically, discovering how American writers over the last two hundred years grapple with issues of conformity, regionalism and race, relationships, the immigrant experience, family, and other cultural concerns that continue to define us.

Through close reading (before class meeting) and lively class discussion, students will gain deeper understanding of the writers' craft and how their deliberate choices of subject, setting, character, and voice shape their artistic intensions and what they wish to convey through their art. Students will learn new ways of looking at good fiction as something beyond mere entertainment, coming to appreciate it as a collective cultural document.

Textbook: The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, Second Edition Edited by Joyce Carol Oates, ISBN: 978-0-19-974439-8

The Short Story and American Identity

Reading List

Please read these stories prior to each class meeting. Week One: Ways of Telling Stories Preface and Introduction Rip Van Winkle ? Washington Irving The Tell-Tale Heart ? Edgar Allan Poe Hills Like White Elephants ? Ernest Hemingway Week Two: Conformity and Defiance The Yellow Wallpaper ?Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Lottery ? Shirley Jackson The Strength of God ? Sherwood Anderson Week Three: Regionalism, Race, and Resistance The Man Who Was Almost a Man ? Richard Wright Where Is the Voice Coming From? ? Eudora Welty Mercy ? Pinckney Benedict

Week Four: Man, Woman, Marriage

A Journey ? Edith Wharton The Country Husband ? John Cheever Are These Actual Miles? ? Raymond Carver

Week Five: Immigrants, the Outsider, and Becoming "American"

The Girl with a Pimply Face ? William Carlos Williams Defender of the Faith ? Philip Roth Hell-Heaven ? Jhumpa Lahiri

Week Six: Family Matters

My Son the Murderer ? Bernard Malamud Today Will Be a Quiet Day ? Amy Hempel Children as Enemies ? Ha Jin

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