LITR293

This course allows students to study the art of fiction as it has been practiced in the United States. The short story and the novel were long the main modes of narrative storytelling, and both have undergone sea changes in their development. Once considered a frivolous form of entertainment, the novel became perhaps one of the world's premier literary forms. At the same time, some say the novel is dying. l-low can both be true? ls either? Somehow, prose fiction uniquely explore literary, philosophical. intellectual, social, and political events —allowing readers to step into and out of the Lives of others. This course will rotate its focus, allowing each semester to choose a theme or time period, allowing students to explore different aspects of the novel in new contexts. Some semesters we will focus on the short story, some on the novel, in different historical or thematic contexts.