USGG 3240 - The Short Story- Short Shorts: A Summer of Short Fiction and Film (0 Credit Hours)

The famous gothic author, Edgar Allan Poe, claims that short stories have a unique type of power: “During the hour or so of perusal the soul of the reader is at the writer’s control. There are no external or extrinsic influences.” Unlike novels, which may take days or weeks to get through, most short stories can be read in less than an hour. In an era when digital media and internet technology appear to whittle away at our attention spans, the value of short stories only
intensifies.

In this course, we’ll spend several summer weeks exploring the short story genre as an international phenomenon. What can a short story communicate that a novel or play cannot? What are the major characteristics of the short story and how do they help the story to speak to Figure 1: Clockwise. Book cover (Barnes and Noble Nook Book); 1953 Film poster (animated short, dir. Ted Parmelee); Screen shot from “El Corazón Delator” (dir. Alfonso Suarez) its readers? How have authors around the world used the short story to push the boundaries of fiction-writing? How did the short story lead to microfiction, and what is the future of short fiction more generally?

In order to discuss these and other questions about the genre of short fiction, we will compare the short story to yet another genre: the short film. Throughout the semester, we will read short stories and then juxtapose the print versions with film adaptations. The original stories on the syllabus come from all over the world. Even better-the film versions are often made by people who come from countries other than those of the original authors. These international adaptations reflect the way that literature and film frequently gain appreciation in a wide audience, regardless of their original languages. We will discuss many types of short writing: comedy, suspense, realism, surrealism, science fiction, children’s fiction and internet fiction. We will read stories meant to make you cry, stories meant to make you laugh and stories mean.

Is Course Repeatable: No