LIT 3024.003 Fall 2023 KT

LIT 3024 is for aspiring writers and critics of the short story. Students need not have a robust background in reading or writing short stories—rather a healthy curiosity is highly encouraged. This course serves as an introduction to reading and understanding short stories. We will be considering the formal elements of short stories like tone, narration, form, theme, and characterization, as well as the thematic and cultural importance of the short stories we read. We’ll read each text with 3 main goals: 1) to experience the text and the emotions, problems, states, and ideas the text embodies, 2) to understand a text’s cultural significance, and 3) to explore the forms, speakers, structures, and other craft elements of the text to better accomplish goals one and two. That is, we want to experience and discuss what the text might say about what it means to be a human being. An examination of any theme in a short story is not just a literary investigation, but also an examination of human nature. Concepts such as characterization, setting, symbolism, and so forth will be the foundation from which we will explore. This course will revolve around decoding meaning from the latent and manifest content of literary works and connect that analysis to larger issues particular to the works’ historical and modern contexts.