Topics in Modern/Contemporary American Literature I

Our course will examine the form of the short story and its utility in conveying the life experiences and insights of American women writers.  We will read their works in light of historical events and feminism’s evolution in the United States, explore how their writings address gender and depict domestic lives and familial relations, and consider their respective use of the short story’s hallmark brevity and concision in rendering the experiences of everyday life.  (Consider Lydia Davis’s story, “Example of the Continuing Past Tense in a Hotel Room”, as an example of such brevity.  Its single sentence reads: “Your housekeeper has been Shelly.”)  Authors studied include Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothy Parker, Elizabeth Hardwick, Grace Paley, Lucia Berlin, Joyce Carol Oates, Lydia Davis, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Ayşe Papatya Bucak.