Welcome, class of 2010!!!

Class of 2010,

Welcome to “Contos & Encontros”!!!

This blog will be part of our new routine for the next term. We will work on a project I started developing in 2008, when I used the blog to teach the same course you are going to take now.  Back then, as I was at UC Riverside  doing research for my PhD, the course was almost entirely virtual – now, we are going to use the material produced then and stored here, but we are also going to profit from the benefits of our face to face encounters twice a week…

Here you will find all the information you need to prepare for our classes – from the course syllabus to reading requirements and tests you will eventually have to take, including links to some of the short stories available online. Your main obligation throughout this term will be, of course, to read all the short stories as well as the theoretical and critical texts assigned in the course syllabus below. You are also required to participate in our virtual discussions and debates – I expect each one of you to post at least one comment whenever an activity is proposed. Of course you are free to carry on chatting… 8)

The official language here is English; however, in the virtual classroom as well as in the real classroom, sometimes we let our mother language slip in. That’s Ok, I myself will use Portuguese whenever it’s necessary… As most of you know, it is part of my personal beliefs to stimulate you to have fun while you study. You can start enjoying yourselves by consulting WordPress’ list of smilies… (As part of the fun, if any of you have your personal blogs and would like to have them linked in our blogroll, just send me the links!)

There will be two other people helping me out here in the backstage. One of them is your former LNA professor, Vanessa, who will take the practical credits required by her PhD course here with us. The other one is still incognito – in fact, the position is open to any of you who have already taken Matrizes LNA / LIN. You just have to sign up for the “Monitoria” test, study hard, do a great test and be #1…

Let’s start working then – our course syllabus is posted here for your reference throughout the term. If I need to make any changes, they will be posted in a new entry, and then updated here. All the material will be available next week at the copy center (5th floor, bldg. C).

COURSE SYLLABUS

Title: The short story in the English-speaking world, from Modernism to the present days

Unit I – 20th century short story in Britain & the U.S. – the canon

MARCH

08th – General orientation;

10th – Text for discussion: “Review of Twice Told Tales”, by Edgar Allan Poe;

15th – Text for discussion: “The Lonely Voice”, by Frank O’Connor;

17th – Virginia Woolf: “The Legacy”;

22nd – James Joyce: “A Painful Case”;

24th – Katherine Mansfield: “Bliss”;

29th – F.Scott Fitzgerald: “Bernice bobs her hair”;

31st – Ernest Hemingway: “Hills like white elephants”;

APRIL

05th – William Faulkner: “A Rose for Emily”;

* Required reading: “The Grotesque: an American Genre” – William van O’Connor

* Suggested reading: “O Velho Sul” – Edward Ranson & Andrew Hook

07th – No class (due to the strong rains);

12th – Flannery O’Connor: “Good Country People”;

14th – Truman Capote: “Miriam”;

19th – No class (canceled by the teacher);

21st – Holiday; no class;

26th – Doris Lessing: “To room nineteen”;

28th – Angela Carter: “The Bloody Chamber” (Previous reading required: “Blue Beard”, by Charles Perrault);

MAY

03rd – J.D. Salinger: “Pretty mouth and green my eyes”;

Note: John Cheever’s “The Cure” will be discussed in Sonia’s course, and must be commented in the blog afterwards;

05th – Ray Bradbury: “I sing the body electric!”;

10th – Kurt Vonnegut: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…”;

12th – Raymond Carver: “A Small, Good Thing”;

*Required reading: “The Stories of Raymond Carver: The Menace of Perpetual Uncertainty”, by Jon Powell;  “Breaking the Ties That Bind: Inarticulation in the Fiction of Raymond Carver”, by Michael WM. Gearhart;

*Recommended film: “Short Cuts”, based on Carver’s short stories (dir. Robert ALTMAN)

17th – Ian McEwan: “First love, last rites”;

19th – Fay Weldon – “Weekend” + James Thurber: “Nine needles”;

Assignment for Unit 1: To be decided – probably an in-class test (valid for both this course and “Ficção & Poesia”) to take place by the end of May.

Unit II – 20th century short story in the English-speaking world – other voices

24th – Kazuo Ishiguro: “A Family Supper”;

26th – Salman Rushdie: “The Prophet’s Hair”;

31st – Jamaica Kincaid: “Girl”; Chinua Achebe: “Dead man’s path”;

* Required reading: “Empire, geography and culture” & “Images of the past”, by Edward Said

JUNE

02nd – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: “The English Woman”;

07th – Nadine Gordimer: “Which New Era Would that Be?”;

09th – Sherman Alexie: “The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in heaven”;

14th – Rudolfo Anaya: “The apple orchard”;

16th – Sandra Cisneros: “Bien Pretty”;

21st – Alice Walker: “Everyday Use“;

23rd – Maxine Hong Kingston; “No name woman”;

Note: Bernard Malamud’s “The Magic Barrel” will be discussed in Sonia’s course, and must be commented in the blog afterwards;

Assignment for Unit 2: Group presentations + class discussions of the short stories in this unit.

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