The Family Album: Reading and Writing the Short Story
LIT4188.01
Course Description
Summary
The poet Czesław Miłosz said once that “when a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.” This idea of the writer’s position amid the family has always mirrored the writer’s position in society, existing both within it and outside of it at the same time. In this class, we will interrogate the family narrative as a particular idea and obsession of the American short story. From this, we will write our own versions of the family story. Writers will include Edward P. Jones, Saul Bellow, Jhumpa Lahiri, Deborah Eisenberg, Rebecca Lee, Cynthia Ozick, Jenny Zhang, A.M. Homes, Nam Le and many, many more. Corequisite: Students are required to be in attendance at all Literature evenings and Poetry at Ź events (most Wednesday evenings at 7:00pm).Prerequisites
Interested students should submit a writing sample of three to five pages of fiction and a short statement of interest in this course to stuartnadler@bennington.edu by Thursday, May 9. Class lists will be posted outside the Literature office on Monday, May 13. Students may apply to multiple 4000-level Reading and Writing courses in the same term, but, once accepted, may enroll in only one 4000-level Reading and Writing course per term.
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