This course aims to provide students with an introduction to four key American women engaged in short story writing in the immediate aftermath of 1945. Students can expect to gain a brief overview of the lives and works of Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Shirley Jackson, and Joyce Carol Oates, and understand how their contribution to literature helped to shape the cultural output of the latter half of the twentieth-century. These sessions focus on key short stories by Carson McCullers ('A Tree A Rock A Cloud'), Flannery O'Connor ('A Good Man Is Hard To Find'), Shirley Jackson ('The Lottery'), and Joyce Carol Oates ('Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?').
Course aim
This course aims to provide an introduction to five key American women engaged in short story writing in the immediate aftermath of 1945: Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Shirley Jackson, and Joyce Carol Oates.
Do I need any particular skills or experience?
- This course is for beginners and improvers
- Complete pre-course reading, which can be found on the 'Modules' tab on your Canvas course page.
By the end of the course I should be able to:
- Establish a basic knowledge of the American women experimenting with the short story form in the immediate aftermath of 1945.
- Illustrate a basic understanding of how to approach and analyse a short story using terms such as structure, style, and language.
- Demonstrate an understanding of these writers' contribution to American post-war literature.
- Develop the confidence to offer opinions and interpretations in a class setting.
What else do I need to know?
Free PDF copies of the short stories we will be working with each week, which can be found on the 'Modules' tab on your Canvas course page.
View full course information sheet
