Dates: 10 sessions, May 12th - July 14th
Time: Sunday, 5:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: 69 Lewis Ave, Brooklyn 11206
Tuition: Sliding scale $0 - $100
Pay what you want— all contributions go towards tea, coffee, and snacks.
Class size: 2-15
Application Form (May 5th Deadline)
About
The short story is a literary form with a rich and varied history. It is also the perfect thing to read closely and discuss on a weekly basis with a group of people interested in reading, writing, thinking, and living. This course will start with the form’s precursors in myths and fables, move through its modern conception as a tale or sketch, and end with contemporary writing that upholds, advances, or subverts the tradition. We will take a formalist approach so as to make discussion open, equal, collaborative, and generative of possibilities for writing. I won’t (because I don’t) pretend to know more than anyone else does about what we read— we will all attempt to come to know the stories better through our close thoughtful reading and discussion. We will be less interested in historical context, information about an authors life, interpretation, etc., and more interested in the formal possibilities apparent to all of us in these intentionally written texts. Though of course, there will be space to talk about personal reactions and all the rest.
There will be a non-mandatory but strongly encouraged writing component:
- Weekly personal reflections/notes as preparation for our discussions; in writing about what we read we will (hopefully) be able to better see the qualities that we feel these specific stories, and stories generally, offer us.
- A short story of your own to be shared with the group on our final meeting; this is great if you are a writer and want a deadline or if you are someone who loves reading but haven’t had the opportunity to write a short story before.
Requirements: A playful, serious, and caring approach to reading and discussion.
Reading List*
Date | Text |
May 12 | Against Interpretation - Susan Sontag
Personal Myths and Fables |
May 19 | Young Goodman Brown, The Birthmark - Nathaniel Hawthorne |
May 26 | The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids - Herman Melville |
June 2 | The Beast in the Jungle - Henry James |
June 9 | Kew Gardens, The Mark on the Wall, Solid Objects - Virginia Woolf
The Boarding House, A Little Cloud - James Joyce |
June 16 | Enoch Soames - Max Beerbohm |
June 23 | Big Boy Leaves Home - Richard Wright |
June 30 | The Balloon, Rebecca, I Bought A Little City, The School, The Great Hug- Donald Barthelme |
July 7 | The Third and Final Continent, Only Goodness - Jhumpa Lahiri |
July 14 | Reading + Potluck |
*I know this list leaves out a lot. It does so necessarily in order to really focus our attention on one or two stories per meeting. It is, however, somewhat open to change depending on group interest.
About the Facilitator
Alejandro teaches high school English and is actively trying to think through a literary taste stuck a century (or two) in the past. When not teaching, reading, or trying to write, he is most likely cooking or playing records.