ENGL3671: Contemporary Short Fiction: Towards an Intersectional Writing of the Present

• Any Single or Joint Honours finalist student wishing to take this Special Topic module must have satisfactorily completed the required number of core modules. Liberal Arts and Outside Honours students must have satisfactorily completed at least one Level 1 core introductory module and ENGL2011 Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism.

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• This module examines a range of postmodern and contemporary short fictional forms in English, including the short story, short story cycle, novella, microfiction and digital short story. Global and comparative in approach, it addresses works by, among others, British, Irish, North American, African and Indian writers, examining the ways in which short fiction has proven itself remarkably adaptable to the changing demands of literary production and study in their global context. Short forms also prove highly responsive to the urgent task of addressing the contemporary resurgence of identity politics by exposing the complex and shifting intersection of race, gender, sexuality, class and nation central to contemporary being and belonging. By encouraging a balance of detailed critical analysis of a range of contemporary short fictional texts (principally as collected in single-author volumes) within defined theoretical contexts (intersectionality and identity politics), this module aims to provide a means of exploring the ongoing significance of short fictional forms to global anglophone literature.

• This module examines a range of postmodern and contemporary short stories in English by British, Irish, North American, African and Indian writers. The short story fits our age, according to Michle Roberts. Fast-paced and fragmentary, the brevity of the short story is able to communicate the complex intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and regional and national identity that invest the immediacy of our contemporary lives with their singular intensity. Beginning roughly with the renaissance of the short story often tied to the emergence of literary minimalism, the module examines a spectrum of shorter forms in the broad context of World Anglophone Literature, including the stand-alone short story, the short story cycle, the novella, microfiction, and recent experiments in digital media and social media platforms, as evidenced in so-called twitter fiction.
• The prescribed stories will vary from year to year, and will draw on a selection of writers, including Aravind Adiga, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Colin Barrett, Raymond Carver, Teju Cole, Jim Crace, Lydia Davis, Junot Daz, Jennifer Egan, Bret Easton Ellis, Danielle Evans, Dave Eggers, Carol Guess, Amy Hempel, A.M. Homes, Jonathan Kemp, Deborah Levy, David Mitchell, China Miville, Phaswane Mpe, Alice Munro, Mary Robison, George Saunders, Ali Smith, Jeanette Winterson, Makhosazana Xaba.
• Central concerns include a sustained analysis of: the aesthetics of brevity and its historical and narratological relation to other literary forms and genres; the relation of short fiction to the evolving media of literary production and the shifts in communication these imply; the representation in short fictional forms of emergent forms of identity and identification, and their relation to changing patterns of work and socio-economic organization, human movement and habitation; the ways in which intersectional literary analysis is active in forging new forms of subjectivity and resistance to prevailing patterns of inclusion and exclusion in a contemporary world marked not only by tremendous complexity but by growing inequalities and vulnerabilities.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Students successfully completing this special topic module will be able to:
• demonstrate a detailed knowledge and sophisticated understanding of the prescribed material;
• demonstrate a broad understanding of a variety of contemporary short fictional forms, and their emergence in relation to other literary forms and genres;
• comment in detail on the significance of literary brevity to contemporary literary production and study;
• comment in detail on the stylistic, structural, formal, narratological and rhetorical aspects of the short story as exemplified in the prescribed material;
• critically evaluate the relationship of prescribed material to broader social, political, ethical and theoretical issues highlighted during the module with specific focus on a contemporary and intersectional identity politics.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students completing this module will be able to:
• conduct detailed, informed and carefully substantiated critical analysis of prescribed literary texts;
• demonstrate sophisticated knowledge of issues pertaining to contemporary short fiction and related literary forms and how these relate to the different media of literary production;
• demonstrate a substantial engagement with relevant conceptual and theoretical material and how this is discussed, exemplified or instantiated in the prescribed literary material;
• demonstrate a sensitivity to the historical and cultural contexts of prescribed material;
• articulate and substantiate an imaginative and sustained response to the literary and conceptual material under discussion;
• demonstrate skill in effective communication and argumentation;
• demonstrate a command of a broad vocabulary and critical terminology appropriate to the prescribed material;
• demonstrate an awareness of the ways in which the contemporary short story establishes a medium through which values are debated;
• construct conceptually, structurally, and stylistically sophisticated responses to short fiction that demonstrate sensitivity to its contexts (conceptual, historical, political, geographical).

Key Skills:

• Students completing this module will develop:
• the capacity to analyse literary texts;
• the capacity to synthesize theoretical, genre-specific, and textual knowledge to construct persuasive arguments in discussion in the context of seminars, and in written summative work;
• enhanced generic skills with respect to the identification, analysis and correct citation of sources in the process of conducting research for written work;
• the capacity for independent thought and judgement, and the ability to critically and sensitively engage the ideas of others
• skills in critical reason and the comparative analysis of texts with diverse cultural origins;
• ability to handle information and arguments in a critical manner;
• information-technology skills such as word-processing, accessing electronic databases, and digital teaching and learning environments;
• enhanced organisational and time-management skills

• Seminars: facilitate peer-group discussion, enabling students to develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of literary and theoretical texts, effectively communicate these insights in informal and formal presentation; provide a platform for engaging with the ideas of others, promoting an awareness of diversity in approaches to prescribed material
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work.
• Independent but directed reading in preparation for seminars: provides opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop the full range of subject-specific and key skills. Directed learning will typically require students to address a specific text or set of texts, topic, or theme, or a set of interrelated questions, and to present their responses, findings, or ideas to their peers and seminar leader in the seminar context.
• Coursework: two summative written assessment provide the opportunity for students to undertake sustained critical reading and research in response to specific question, to construct sustained and arguments in response to prescribed material and specific questions, and to specific demonstrate a range subject-specific knowledge and skills as well as generic key skills in the presentation of written work.
• Feedback: written feedback provided on first summative written assessment places students in a position to reflect constructively in order to improve their work in writing a second essay for special topic modules.

Prior to submitting the first assessed essay, students have an individual 15 minute consultation session in which they may discuss a series of points related to or outlining their essay with their seminar leader. They will receive oral feedback on these points during the meeting. Students may elect to discuss ideas pertaining to the second essay during this meeting as well.

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