LIT 3024 - Summer 2025 - Selby

In this class we'll explore a variety of absurd, speculative, subversive, and even silly short stories from across time and geography, delving into content and form. What makes a story silly, absurd, speculative, or subversive? And how can one tell the difference between science fiction and the speculative in literary fiction? These genres can function as entry points into critical thinking, lending readers new perspectives and frameworks for understanding their respective cultures and themselves.

While we'll discuss adjacent theory and criticism, our primary focus is craft– narrative voice, point of view, pacing, symbolism, form, and structure. Through story deconstruction students will become mechanics of the form, with ample opportunities to practice writing in their own unique voices. Expect to read authors like Nikolai Gogol, Carmen Maria Machado, Charles Yu, George Saunders, Nghi Vo, Karen Russell, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Joy Williams, Taruho Inagaki, Nell Zink, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Class time includes lively discussion, reading and writing exercises, and interactive modes of interpreting our stories. Students will leave this class capable of discussing and interpreting any short stories they may encounter.