2014-2015 academic year

English Literature Studies (20098)

Degree/study: Degree in Humanities

Year: 3^rd- 4th

Term: 1^st

Number of ECTS credits: 5

Hours of student dedication:

Teaching language or languages: English

Teaching Staff: Miquel Berga & Pere Gifra

1. Presentation of the subject

The American Short Story: from Poe to Carver

Study and interpretation of the main periods, trends, texts and authors that have shaped the tradition of the American short story throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Special emphasis will be given to the linguistic and thematic evolution of the American short story and above all to the transformation of its narrative strategies. Apart from familiarizing students with this literary tradition, the course also proposes a close readings of around twenty stories, as well as creative tasks of re-rewriting that aim at the comprhension of some of the most relevant texts.

2. Competences to be attained

General competences

Specific competences

•1. Instrumental skills

Arguing, that is to say, defending or justifying a certain position in written and in speech.
Having deductive reasoning skills, that is, reaching a conclusion from a series of premises.
Generalising, or extracting a general norm from a limited amount of data or examples.
Transmitting, in written and in a speech, and in a well organised fashion, the acquired knowledge.
Analysing and synthesising information taken from a variety of sources.
Organising and planning academic work.
Using previous knowledge in any learning activity.
Applying theory to practice.

•2. Interpersonal skills

Group work and meaning negotiation skills.
Individual work skills.
Integrating group work in the autonomous work.
Communicating interpersonally in a small and in a big group.

•3. Systemic skills

Creativity.
Self-learning and continued learning skills.

•1. Knowing, situating and interpreting relevant examples of short fiction written by canonical American authors.

•2. Analysing the evolution of the linguistic and thematic registers from Poe to Carver..

•3. Contextualizing the evolution of the American short story in relation to the main trends of European literature and understanding the transition from a colonial to a national literature.

•4. Knowing and analysing the evolution of the narrative strategies of the most significant authors.

•5. Rewriting and creatively recreating some of the texts studied in the course.

•6. Knowing the most significant theories of the short story so as to be able to propose sound interpretations of the texts.

3. Contents

1. Search for Form: Poe, Hawthorne, Melville.

2. Regionalism & Realism: Twain, Harte, Gilman.

3. A National Art Form: James, Henry, Anderson, Hemingway, Faulkner, Capote

4. The Contemporary Scene: Bowles, Cheever, Updike, Oates, Coover, Carver, Shepard, Cisneros...

4. Evaluation

The evaluation of the course consists in a final exam (50%) and a creative project (50%) that will consist in creatively re-writing and re-interpreting one of the texts read in class. Students who fail the final exam will have a make-up exam during the following quarter. Those students who fail the paper will have the opportunity to revise it and resubmit it during the following quarter by the deadline provided by the teachers.

5. Bibliography and Resources

It is all provided in the coursepack.

Course Schedule

ENGLISH LITERATURE STUDIES (20098)
	Tuesdays	Thursdays
25/09		COURSE INTRO/ SHORT STORY THEORIES
30/09 - 02/10	E. A. POE	E. A. POE
07/10 - 09/10	NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE	NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
14/10 - 16/10	HERMANN MELVILLE	HERMANN MELVILLE
21/10 - 23/10	MARK TWAIN	BRET HARTE
28/10 - 30/10	CHARLOTTE P. GILMAN	HENRY JAMES
04/11 - 06/11	HENRY JAMES	RING LARDNER
11/11 - 13/11	SHERWOOD ANDERSON	ERNEST HEMINGWAY
18/11 - 20/11	ERNEST HEMINGWAY	WILLIAM FAULKNER
25/11 - 27/11	WILLIAM FAULKNER	RAYMOND CARVER
02/12	CONCLUSIONS