Lynda Schor
Office: 453 Office Hours: Mondays & Wednesdays,
12:30 to 1:30
212 691-6337 lyndaschor@earthlink.net
In this course we’ll approach each assignment, or our own projects,
as if we’re
inventing the short story or other prose forms, with a new look at
language, structure,
image, character, and any other elements of fiction. We’ll question
what the elements
of fiction are, and which are necessary. In each original experiment
we’ll question
our concepts of reality, perception, and values. As Thomas Pynchon
says, we’ll find
that, “The more we think we know, the less we know we know.”
Along with a couple of assignments (listed further on) and one long
project generated
by yourselves, we’ll be reading a variety of authors who play with
existing forms,
invent new ones, and create forms that satirize form itself.
We’ll also read authors
who break rules, and transgress conventions we often take for granted,
either for
fun or for political purposes.
Requirements
This class is designed as a workshop. Learning how to listen to
each other’s writing,
and how to speak effectively about what might make each work stronger,
or just
sharing ideas, are crucial elements of the workshop. There is
nothing more stimulating
than hearing the work of others and discovering how varied each approach
to an
assignment can be.
Given the nature of the workshop it is easy to see why your excellent
attendance and
active class participation are essential.
1. Students are expected to attend classes regularly and promptly.
For courses that
meet twice a week, more than 3 absences will result in a failing final
grade. For courses
that meet once a week, more than 2 absences will result in a failing
final grade. If you are
more than 10 minutes late to a class this will count as an absence.
In case of personal
and medical emergencies, students should contact their instructors
as well as the Director
of Academic Advising.
2. On days you are reading, you must have copies of your work for your classmates.
3. You should be prepared to read when asked.
4. You should save every draft of your work.
5. A revised copy of your final project, and two assignments, must be
given to me at our
last class of the semester, unless we’ve made other arrangements.
Assignments
1. Choice of: Write a story using a number as a basis for its
structure. For example:
33 Short Films About Glenn Gould, 13 Conversations About One Thing,
11 Ways of
Seeing, 20 Questions For My Lover, etc. Or: A satirical version
of your first sex experience.
2. Write a story that incorporates another type of text, or text written
by someone else.
These texts should be combined with or within your story. For
example: sets of instructions,
apartment lease, textbook materials, personals ads, articles, fairy
tales, soap opera plots,
National Enquirer articles, cartoon characters.
For the final two thirds of the semester
you will propose an innovative project of your
own, and complete it.
Suggested Readings
The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Fiction
T. C. Boyle Collected Short Fiction
T. C. Boyle
Because They Wanted To, Bad Behavior
Mary Gaitskill
60 Stories
Donald Barthelme
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
David Foster Wallace
Tabloid Dreams
Robert Olen Butler
For The Relief of Unbearable Urges
Nathan Englander
Flying Leap
Judy Budnitz
Try
Dennis Cooper
Sarah
J. T. Leroy
Almost No Memory
Lydia Davis
Notable American Women
Ben Marcus
The Behindlings
Nicola Barker
Out of Sheer Rage
Geoff Dyer
Volkswagen
Geoff Nicholson
House of Leaves
Mark Danielovsky
Naked Lunch
William Burroughs
Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov
The Floating Opera
John Barth
Gerald’s Party
Robert Coover
The Stars at Noon
Denis Johnson
Other innovative authors: Tim O’Brien, Kathy Acker, Henry Miller,
Nicholson Baker,
Curtis White