डॉ. बी. आर. अम्बेडकर विश्वविद्यालय दिल्ली 
| Course Type | Course Code | No. Of Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation Core | SCC2LA205 | 4 |
Semester and Year Offered: Winter 2013
Course Coordinator and Team: Dr. Moushumi Kandhali, [Programme Coordinator: Dr. Akhil Katyal]
Email of course coordinator: akhilkatyal[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in
Pre-requisites: None
Course Objectives/Description:
The course will follow a simultaneous discourse of theory and practice throughout the semester. Reading various critical texts about the genre of story writing and its associated theoretical deliberations along with a set of primary creative texts used for substantiating and elucidating these theoretical arguments, the students will be initiated to delve deeper into the generic and thematic exploration of fiction writing. The reading will be followed by simultaneous writing exercises to translate their learning and critical appreciation into practical exercises of creative writing. As a practice oriented creative writing course on fiction the evaluation will be done on the basis of these continuous engagements in writing exercises done on alternate weeks. They students will present their individual works in the class and take part in peer review and group discussion about various contexts and the aesthetic / formalist/ thematic aspects of the literary productions presented in the class. The objective is to explore the generic and thematic experimentations in the creative writing of short fiction. To introduce the experimental trend of post modernist/meta-fictional/ anti-story in a comparatist mode with the conventional/realist/ modernist mode of narration. The course will involve: Discussions about the manifested multiplicity of narrative modes such as folktales, oral narratives , fable, novella, the anecdote, the anti-story, flash fiction for a further mapping of the transition to modern fiction; Interface between oral/ textual/ performative/ visual. Investigation about the reworking of the parable, allegory and myths in modern context; Discussions about genres and select stories: Gothic/Fantastic, Realist/Surrealist, Modernist/ Postmodernist.
Course Outcomes:
- On completion of the course, the student should be able to demonstrate:
- Disciplinary Knowledge: A familiarity with the genre of the short-story, including both its history and theoretical formulations unpacking the form.
- Creative Writing & Peer-Review Practice: To inculcate a strong practice of short-story creative writing among the students as creative writers, and ability to offer peer-review.
- Critical Thinking and Analytic Reasoning: through an engagement with the history, form and thematic diversity of the short-story genre.
Brief description of modules/ Main modules:
Introduction. Discussions about the generic expression with an intensified focus based on various critical/ theoretical contemplations by various writers and critics. Discussions about the manifested multiplicity of narrative modes such as folktales, oral narratives , fable, novella, the anecdote, the anti-story, flash fiction for a further mapping of the transition to modern fiction. Interface between oral/ textual/ performative/visual. Investigation about the reworking of the parable, allegory and myths in modern context. Discussions about genres and select stories: Gothic/Fantastic, Realist/ Surrealist, Modernist/ Postmodernist.
Text: (Excerpts)
· The Story-Teller: Reflections on the works of Nicholai Leskov by Walter Benjamin, [1936], in Illuminations (NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1968).
· ‘An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative’, Roland Barthes and Lionel Duisit, New Literary History, Vol. 6, No. 2, On Narrative and Narratives (Winter, 1975), pp. 237-272.
· Ross Chambers, Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction, Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1984. [Introduction & excerpts]
· The Structure of Gogol's "The Overcoat", Boris Eichenbaum, Beth Paul and Muriel Nesbitt, The Russian Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Oct., 1963), pp. 377-399.
· Freud, S. (1919). The ‘Uncanny’. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVII (1917-1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works, 217-256
STORIES for close reading (More texts would be added further if necessary)
Husain, Intezar, ‘The Chronicle of the Peacock’, in A Chronicle of the Peacocks: Stories of Partition, Exile and Lost Memories, Oxford University Press: 2002.
Robbie, Issac Asimov, in ttu.ee, https://www.ttu.ee/public/m/mart-murdvee/Techno-Psy/Isaac_Asimov_-_I_Robot.pdf, D.O.A.: June, 2019.
Haunted House, Virginia Woolf, in ebooks.adelaide.edu.au, https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91h/chapter1.html,
D.O.A.: June, 2019.
Overcoat, Nicholai Gogol, in indianliterature.co.za http://indianliterature.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/overcoat_by_nicolai_gogol.pdf, D.O.A.: June, 2019.
Writing Exercise:
· Writing a short story by re-telling a myth/ re-creating a mythical character.
· Writing an anti –story/ flash fiction.
UNIT II:The Thematic Ensemble
Subjects and Subjectivities
· Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, Cornell University Press: New York, 1980.
· [Selections] Naomi Schor, Reading in Detail: Aesthetics and the Feminine, Routledge: 2007.
STORIES for close reading (More texts would be added further if necessary)
Peasants, Anton Chekhov, in Online Literature, http://www.online-literature.com/anton_chekhov/1285/, D.O.A.: June, 2019.
Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, Fingerprint Publishing: 2014.
Girl, Jamaika Kincaid, June 1978: The New Yorker: New York.
Phoren soap, Bhupen Khakhar, in BhupenKhakharCollection, https://bhupenkhakharcollection.com/phoren-soap/, D.O.A.: June, 2019.
The third bank of river, Joao Guimaraes Rosa, in SPHSTigers.org, http://www.sphstigers.org/ourpages/users/jasher/SSBootCampWebsite/The%20Third%20Bank%20of%20the%20River.pdf, D.O.A.: June, 2019.