Short Fiction: From Stories to Sitcoms ENGL Summer 2017 / Session II / Mondays and Wednesdays

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1 ** Please Note: This Syllabus is Tentative and May Be Subject to Change ** Instructor: Clare Mullaney Office: TBA Office Hours: Mondays, 1-3 p.m. Office Phone: TBA Short Fiction: From Stories to Sitcoms ENGL Summer 2017 / Session II / Mondays and Wednesdays Course Description What makes short forms of fiction appealing? This course will consider how and why the short story became a distinctly American genre at the start of the nineteenth century. Exploring what Henry James called the thinness of American literature, we will ask: why was the short form which emphasized compactness, brevity, and singularity particularly suited to expressing national life and culture in the U.S.? How did modes of publishing the short story change throughout time from the periodical press to the anthology and even television? And how does the short story engage in conversations about gender, race, class, and disability? In addition to reading a number of critical essays on the short story, we will survey some of the major short story writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, including: Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, Flannery O Conner, and James Baldwin. The second half of the course will look at the history of both radio and television sitcoms to consider how the short story form has adapted beyond just textual mediums. In addition to listening to early radio broadcasts from the 1920s, we will watch selected episodes from the Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, Cheers, Seinfeld, Parks & Recreation, to name just a few. Requirements will include a series of short research exercises, three short papers, and a creative project. Course Books (available at Penn Book Center on 34 th and Sansom St.); note: any text indicated with an asterisk (*) will be available as a PDF on Canvas Mary M. Dalton, The Sitcom Reader: American Viewed and Skewed (2005) Course Requirements 2 5-page papers 50% (25% each) Creative Project 25% Attendance, Participation, & Short Exercises 25%

2 Course Assignments You will be asked to write two 5-page papers throughout the course. I will provide prompts for each essay, but you re also welcome to create a topic of your own choosing provided that you consult me in advance about your idea. You will also asked to do a series of short exercises, which I will announce in class. The creative project will also be discussed the first day of class. Course Policies Accessibility, Accommodations, Abilities I am committed to making our classroom a shared place where all of us can work collaboratively to accommodate our individual learning needs. We each learn in different ways and will all need accommodations; some students, for example, prefer learning by talking, others by listening, and some of us are visual learners. If certain circumstances affect your performance in the class, please let me know. Together, we can learn how to best accommodate our own learning preferences. If you have a physical, psychological, or learning disability that may affect your work in the course, please contact Penn s Office of Student Disabilities Services at The office is located in the Weingarten Learning Resources Center at Stouffer Commons on 3702 Spruce Street in Suite 300. All services are confidential. Students with disabilities of any kind are encouraged to approach me as soon as possible, and we can work together to alter the course assignments and activities to meet your needs. Academic Integrity All Penn students are bound by the Code of Academic Integrity and are assumed to have read and understood it. If you are unsure what constitutes plagiarism, please see the University of Pennsylvania s Code of Academic Integrity at: and or simply ask me. Attendance Please let me know prior to class if you will be absent for any reason. However, given the condensed nature of our class, you re expected to attend each session. Exceptions will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

3 Course Schedule Monday, July 3 rd -- Course Introduction -- Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Le Moineau (Le Moile (1846)* -- Bret Harte, The Rise of the Short Story (1899)* -- Junot Diaz, On My Way to the Novel, I Fell in Love With the Short Story (2016) ( PART I: The Birth of the American Short Story Wednesday, July 5 th -- Charles Brockden Brown, Somnambulism: A Fragment (1805)* -- Nathaniel Hawthorne selections from Twice-Told Tales (1837); The Wedding-Knell, The Minister s Black Veil, The Haunted Mind, and The Ambitious Guest * -- Washington Irving, The Author s Account of Himself, (1819), Rip Van Winkle (1819)*, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1859)* Monday, July 10 th Wednesday, July 12 th THE ART OF OMISSION: PRINT AND THE PERIODICAL -- Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Freeman s Dream: A Parable, The National Era (1850)* -- Herman Melville, Bartleby, The Scrivener, The Atlantic Monthly (1853)* -- William Parker, The Freedman s Story, The Atlantic Monthly (1866)* -- The Atlantic s Call for Short Stories (1860s/1870s)* -- Ernest Hemingway, The Art of the Short Story (1959)* *Close Reading Exercise Due NEW ENGLAND REGIONS -- Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron (1886)*, The Flight of Betsey Lane (1893)* -- Mary Wilkins Freeman, A New England Nun (1891)*, A Mistaken Charity (1887)* -- Willa Cather, Paul s Case (1905)* --Richard Brodhead, Introduction to Cultures of Letters (1993)* SOUTHERN REGIONS Monday, July 17 th -- Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour (1894)* -- Charles Chesnutt, selections from The Conjure Woman; Po Sandy, The Dumb Witness (1899)*

4 -- Flannery O Conner, A Good Man is Hard to Find (1953)*, Good Country People (1955),* A Good Man is Hard to Find, * & selections from Writing Short Stories * *Paper 1 Due POLITICIZING GENRE Wednesday, July 19 th --James Baldwin, Sonny s Blues (1965)* --Alice Walker, Everyday Use (1973)* --Junot Diaz, selections from Drown (1997)* --Sherman Alexie, What You Pawn I will Redeem (2003) ( PART II: Beyond Print The Short Story & Multi-Modal Genres RADIO BROADCASTS Monday, July 24 th -- episodes 1 and 2, Sam n Henry ( ) ( 26Georgiana.mp3) -- episodes 1 and 2, The Jack Benny Program ( ) ( gcrosbygarycooper.mp3) -- short selection from The Development of the American Short Story (1923) -- Introduction & David Mare s Origins of the Genre: In Search of the Radio Sitcom (Chapter 1, The Sitcom Reader) FROM SOUND TO SCREEN: EARLY SITCOMS, 1940s-1960s Wednesday, July 26 th episode of Mary Kay and Johnny ( ) -- The 99,000 Answer (Season 1, Episode 18 [1955]) The Honeymooners ( ) -- The Freezer (Season 1, Episode 21 [1952]) I Love Lucy ( ) -- Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth (Season 5, Episode 1 [1965]) The Dick Van Dyke Show ( ) --David Pierson s American Situation Comedies and the Modern Comedy of Manners (Chapter 3, The Sitcom Reader) --Lori Landay s I Love Lucy: Television and Gender in Postwar Domestic Ideology (Chapter 7, The Sitcom Reader) *Film Exercise Due

5 FROM SOUND TO SCREEN, con t: MORE CONTEMPORARY SITCOMS, 1970s-Present Monday, July 31 st -- Abyssinia, Henry (Season 3, Episode 24 [1975]) M*A*S*H ( ) -- Truce or Consequences (Season 1, Episode 8 [1982]) Cheers ( ) -- The Soup Nazi (Season 6, Episode 7 [1995]) Seinfeld ( ) -- The Telethon (Season 2, Episode 22 [2010] Parks and Recreation ( ) --Robert S. Brown s Cheers: Searching for the Ideal Public Sphere in the Ideal Public House (Chapter 20, The Sitcom Reader) Wednesday, Aug. 2 nd Friday, July 4 Course Conclusion *Presentation of Creative Projects *Paper 2 Due