Introduction to Short Fiction
Comparative Literature 135
Fall 2012
M,Th1 (8:40-10:00am)
ARC-110, Busch Campus
Instructor: Tara Coleman
Email address: tjcole@eden.rutgers.edu
Office Hours: Monday 12-1pm in the Scarlet Latte (Alexander Library, CAC);
after class Mondays and Thursdays; other times by appointment
Course website: https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal, click on “Intro to Short Fiction 195:135:04”
Learning Goals
Note that this course fulfills the following requirements:
 SAS Liberal Arts Distribution Requirements
This course fulfills the Humanities requirement.
 New Core Curriculum Learning Goals
This course will meet the following goal:
C: Arts and the Humanities (3 credits)
p. Analyze arts and/or literatures in themselves and in
relation to specific histories, values, languages, cultures,
and technologies.
Comparative Literature Learning Goals:
This course employs the learning goals that have been developed by the Program in Comparative
Literature for its respective majors, minors and for non-majors who take these courses as
electives:
 Students will demonstrate familiarity with a variety of world literatures as well as
methods of studying literature and culture across national and linguistic boundaries and
evaluate the nature, function and value of literature from a global perspective.
 They will demonstrate critical reasoning and research skills; design and conduct research
in an individual field of concentration (such as literary theory, women's literature, post
colonial studies, literature and film, etc); analyze a specific body of research and write a
clear and well developed paper or project about a topic related to more than one literary
and cultural tradition.
Course Description
This course will explore how authors use various genres of short fiction – the short story, novella
and short novel – to imagine, contest and pose alternatives to the nation. Beginning with the
nineteenth century and concluding in the present moment, we will read works from different
linguistic and cultural traditions, paying particular attention to how collectivities are created,
challenged and recreated by fictional texts. We will discuss how various authors have dealt with
concepts such as nationalism, colonialism and postcolonialism, transnationalism and exile in
their fiction, focusing on the special role that short fiction plays in imagining those collectivities.
Questions we will ask include: what is distinct about the short story, as opposed to the novel,
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play or poem? What sorts of readers are addressed by these stories and what questions do they
force us to ask about those readers? How do the language of the text and the process of
translation affect the types of communities a text addresses and supports? How does the short
story form evolve over time, and where is it going in the 21st Century?
Attendance Requirements
Students are expected to attend all classes and attendance will be taken at each class meeting. If
you expect to miss one or two classes, please use the University absence reporting website
https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/ to indicate the date and reason for your absence. An email is
automatically sent to me.
Each student is allowed two unexcused absences for the semester; exceeding that number
will result in a lowering of the participation grade for each further absence. Missing class will
also affect your grades on in-class quizzes and writing assignments, so altogether absences can
affect up to 30% of your final grade. I will notify you via email after you have had two
unexcused absences. If you expect to miss class for religious holidays, athletic competitions, job
interviews or doctor’s appointments, you will be excused if you notify me in advance. I will also
excuse absences due to illness or transportation emergencies but if you require multiple excused
absences for these reasons, you will need to provide some form of verification.
Late arrivals of more than 15 minutes will count as half an unexcused absence.
Long-term absences. In cases where students must miss classes for periods longer than one
week, they are directed to see a Dean of Students for assistance to help verify these
circumstances.
Required Texts
All of the texts for this course will be available on the course Sakai site, except the following:


Anton Chekhov, The Duel, Dover Thrift edition, ISBN: 978-0140444155
Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer, Signet Classics edition,
ISBN: 978-0451526571
*Both of these texts are available on Amazon for less than $4 including shipping, for those who
prefer a real book. Please buy the edition listed so that we have the same translation. They are
also available as a free Kindle e-book (you can download the Kindle e-reader even if you don’t
have a Kindle). For these two weeks only, laptops, Kindles or iPads, etc. will be allowed in class
for those who prefer to use the free version of the text.
Course Etiquette
Our class meetings will be a time for us to come together to dive into the texts and to develop
and refine our ideas about them. It will also be the time for us to draw connections between texts
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and traditions. The readings for each class are short enough to allow us to do close and careful
reading in class. In order to be prepared for such close reading, you must read the texts in their
entirety before every class. You will also need to have the text in front of you during class, be
able to take notes on it and be able to move around the classroom easily, so you are required to
print out the materials from Sakai before coming to class.
At the beginning of each class meeting, there will be a short quiz or a question I will ask you to
respond to in writing. This will help me gauge how the class is doing with the readings as we go
along. You will also be able to write down any questions of your own during this time, which
you may pose in class or which you can leave for me to read and address later on. Sometimes, in
lieu of a quiz or in-class response, I will ask you to bring a short written response to class (no
more than a paragraph). We will open the class by sharing and discussing your developing
arguments and approaches to the texts in order to prepare you for writing your papers.
The class discussion is meant to be a time for lively discussion and debate. While I hope you will
disagree with each other and challenge one another to push your ideas further, a productive
intellectual community requires respect for every participant’s views. All students should feel
free to pose questions and suggest interpretations, whether to check a basic fact or test out a notyet-fleshed-out idea. Class time will also be used to develop your writing skills and workshop
papers. I expect all students to provide respectful, constructive feedback on their peers’ work.
Please note that all cell phones, tablets, netbooks, laptops and any other form of electronic
equipment must be turned off and put away during class. Unfortunately, it is impossible for
one instructor to monitor the use of electronic devices by all students in the classroom and
improper use of laptops and cell phones violates the spirit of intellectual working together that
constitutes the classroom experience. If you have a special need to use a device (e.g. to look
something up during group work), speak to me first. Otherwise, I will interpret use of such
devices as evidence of less than full participation in the day’s discussion, and your participation
grade will be affected as a result.
Grading Policy
The final grade will be based on:
Attendance and participation in class discussion: 10%
In-class quizzes and short writing assignments: 20%
Two short papers (3-5 pages) addressing issues in a single work: 20% each
Final comparative paper (5-7 pages) addressing two or more works: 30%
Total--------------------------------------100%
Grading Rubric
A=90-100; B+=87-89; B=80-86; C+=77-79; C=70-76; D=60-69; F=59 and below
A specific rubric for your written assignments will be posted on Sakai.
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Policy on Plagiarism
Written assignments for this course will be submitted through Sakai and will be checked for
plagiarism.
Plagiarism can include using information from published materials (including the internet)
without acknowledging the source, teaming up with a classmate to write a paper, and having
someone else write some or all of a paper for you. In this course I am interested in your ideas, in
your work. If I should discover evidence of plagiarism, I will pursue it following the interim
Rutgers Academic Integrity Policy, which can be accessed by clicking on this link:
http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/files/documents/AI_Policy_9_01_2011.pdf
Violations of the policy include: cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, denying others access to
information or material, and facilitating violations of academic integrity.
Here is a plagiarism tutorial that students might wish to consult for clarification of what
plagiarism is:
http://sccweb.scc-net.rutgers.edu/douglass/sal/plagiarism/Intro.html
Students with Disabilities
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey abides by the Americans with Disabilities Act of
1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments (ADAA) of 2088, and Sections 504 and
508 which mandate that reasonable accommodations be provided for qualified students with
disabilities. If you have a disability and may require some type of instructional and/or
examination accommodation, please contact your instructor early in the semester. If you have not
already done so, you will need to register with the Office of Disability Services, located in the
Kreeger Learning Center, 151 College Avenue, Suite 123, phone number 732-932-2848.
The Undergraduate Program in Comparative Literature
Comparative Literature is an exciting interdisciplinary program that allows you to study
literature as it shapes and is shaped by the world of science, economics, politics, sexuality, and
other cultural and historical forces. It is a major that should be attractive to students with a wide
ranging interest in literature, theory, and cultural studies, and who also wish to read literature in
the original language as well as in translation. For more information on majoring or minoring in
Comparative Literature at Rutgers, please visit: http://complit.rutgers.edu/ or contact
Undergraduate Director Jorge Marcone at jmarcone@rci.rutgers.edu.
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Class Schedule – Introduction to Short Fiction
Fall 2012
September 6: Introduction
The Short Story and the Nation
Sept. 10: Nikolai Gogol, “Nevsky Prospect”, “Diary of a Madman”
Sept. 13: Guy de Maupassant, “Boule-de-suif”, “Le Horla”; selection from Benedict Anderson
Imagined Communities
Sept. 17: Machado de Assis, “Midnight Mass”, “A Famous Man”
Sept. 20: William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”; selection from Craig Calhoun, Nationalism
Sept. 24: James Joyce, “The Dead”
Sept. 27: Thomas Mann, “Disorder and Early Sorrow”
Oct. 1: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”; Gertrude Stein, “Miss Furr and Miss
Skeene”
Oct. 4: Lu Xun, “Preface to A Call to Arms”, “A Madman’s Diary”, “The New Year’s Sacrifice”
Oct. 8: Akutagawa Ryunosuke, “Rashomon”, “In a Bamboo Grove”, “Horse Legs”; Writing
Workshop
Imperialism and Colonialism: Engaging with Short Fiction
Oct. 11: Anton Chekhov, The Duel
Friday, October 12: First Short Paper Due, 5pm on Sakai
Oct. 15: The Duel continued; selection from Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes
Oct. 18: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Oct. 22: Heart of Darkness continued; “The Secret Sharer”
Oct. 25: Chinua Achebe, “A Civil Peace,” “The Madman”, “Girls at War”; “The African Writer
and the English Language”
Oct. 29: Ngugi wa Thiong’o “Minutes of Glory”; “The Language of African Literature”
Nov. 1: Rabindranath Tagore “Kabuliwallah”, “Punishment”, “The Wife’s Letter”
Nov. 5: Salman Rushdie, selection from East/West; “Imaginary Homelands”; Writing Workshop
Nov. 8: Assia Djebar, selections from Women of Algiers in Their Apartment
Friday, November 9: Second Short Paper Due, 5pm on Sakai
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Cosmopolitan, Transnational and Fin-de-siècle Fiction
Nov. 12: Zhang Ailing, “Locked”; Zhu Tianwen “Fin-de-siècle splendor”
Nov. 15: Nawal el Saadawi, “In Camera”; Hanan al-Shaykh, “A Season of Madness”
Nov. 19: Jorge Louis Borges, “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” “The Garden of Forking Paths”,
“The Library of Babel”
Nov. 20: Murakami Haruki, “The Elephant Vanishes”; selection from Blind Willow, Sleeping
Woman
Nov. 26: V.S. Naipaul, “One Out of Many”; selection from Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La
Frontera
Nov. 29: Edwidge Danticat, selections from Krik? Krak!
Dec. 3: Frances Negron-Mutaner, Brincando el charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican [the film is
available for viewing at the Douglass Media Center]; other writings
Dec. 6: Writing Workshop
Dec. 10: Yung Hai Cha Heavy Industries (web fiction), Conclusion
Wednesday, December 12: Final Paper Due, 5pm on Sakai
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