Masterworks in American Short Fiction

Calendar

ses #	topics	key DATES
1	A Hearty Welcome Discussion of William Carlos Williams’s, “The Use of Force.” A Few “Getting to Know You” Exercises
2	Discussion of Hawthorne’s, “The Birth-Mark.” And One of the Low Points of the Term - Some Professorial Mutterings on Romanticism and Symbol
3	Discussion of Melville’s, “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”
4	A Preliminary Set of Definitions - Romanticism vs. Realism Discussion of Henry James’s, “The Turn of the Screw.”
5	We’ll Finish with James
6	Discussion of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wall-Paper.”
7	Discussion of Willa Cather’s, “Old Mrs. Harris.”	Post journal
8	More on Cather
9	Discussion of Stephen Crane’s, “The Blue Hotel.”
10	Some Misguided Professorial Remarks on Modernism Discussion of William Faulkner’s, “Barn Burning.”
11	Discussion of Ernest Hemingway’s, “Indian Camp,” and “The Three-Day Blow.”
12	Hemingway Continues in the Rain and Despair Hey, Let’s Go Fishing on the “Big Two-Hearted River,” ok?
13	A Walk on the Noir Side. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941) Discuss Dashiell Hammett’s, “The Whosis Kid.”	Post journal
14	Discussion of Eudora Welty’s, “Why I Live at the P.O.”
15	Discussion of Eudora Welty’s, “Moon Lake.” Anyone who ever went to summer camp can help educate the rest of us.	Post journal
16	Discussion of Julia Alvarez’s, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Chapter 1.
17	Discussion of Julia Alvarez’s, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent. What is this book - a novel? A collection of stories? In any case, what is it most fundamentally “about?”
18	Discussion of Raymond Carver’s, “Boxes.”
19	Discussion of Tim O’Brien’s, “The Things They Carried.”
20	Discussion of Junot Diaz’s, Drown. Formulate some possible questions to ask him, when he visits class just after the break.	Post journal
21	Guest Appearance by Junot Diaz
22	Final Presentations
23	Final Presentations (cont.)
24	Final Class Meeting Sorrowful Farewells, and THE HILDESILLY ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE JOKE CONTEST (Yes, there will be prizes to be won)