ENGL 6120-01
The Art of Southern
Short Fiction
Professor Name: Brickman, B.
Days and time of class: MW 2:00-4:45
Location of class: TLC2237
Class Description:
This seminar will examine the development and art of Southern short fiction,
from Edgar Allen Poe’s gothic nightmares to Bobbie Ann Mason’s rural relationships.
In her essay, “Writing Short Stories,” Flannery O’Connor defines two qualities
that “make fiction”—a “sense of mystery” and a “sense of manners”—and, fortunately
for the Southern writer, both inhere in their society “that is rich in contradiction,
rich in irony, rich in contrast, and particularly rich in its speech.” This
course will address both the qualities that make up Southern short fiction
and the culture that informs the literary imagination there. Moving from notions
of the gothic and grotesque to questions of religion, regionalism, race,
and marginality, we will discuss writers as diverse as Kate Chopin, Zora
Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Bobbie Ann
Mason, Dorothy Allison, and, of course, O’Connor and Poe.
Texts:
Edgar Allen Poe, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe
Eudora Welty, The Collected Stories
Zora Neale Hurston, The Complete Stories
Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories
Carson McCullers, Collected Stories of Carson McCullers
Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh and Other Stories
Dorothy Allison, Trash: Stories
Requirements:
An oral presentation, weekly responses, and a research paper