BERGAMO
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
Students are expected to acquire knowledge of the tradition of the short-story form in the literary context and history of the United States from the second half of the 19th century until now. They will also be able to identify the main writers, movement and stylistic tendencies against the backdrop of crucial historical events and be acquainted with literary periodization and with main aspects of the critical and theoretical evolution of the short story.
Course Prerequisites
Basic English proficiency.
Teaching Methods
Lectures will be held in Italian and students will be encouraged to participate actively in class, especially during seminar sessions in which the scheduled readings are discussed. They will be able to propose presentations and in-depth studies on particular topics or texts to be negotiated.
Assessment Methods
The written exam will be aimed at evaluating the knowledge of the course reading list, with a particular stress on textual analysis and critical skills. Attention will be posed on:
- Cultural and Historical knowledge with reference to the authors and works;
- Ability to translate from English into Italian short texts or passages discussed in class and frame them in socio-cultural terms;
- Ability to write a short critical essay in which the students demonstrate abilities in tackling themes and formal features of the course materials.
The test will be subdivided into three parts: a first one composed of questions referring to first and secondary sources; a part where students are asked to contextualize and translate from English into Italian a short part of one of the literary materials in the reading list; and a part of writing production where students are required to critically discuss specific topics of the course contents while demonstrating to be able to contextualize them within historical and cultural processes.
A. Excellent/Outstanding (30 - 30 e lode): excellent knowledge of all of the contents of the course. Excellent ability to analyze the texts and to contextualize them in an appropriate way. The student uses the academic writing register/style with appropriate linguistic terminologies. The translation is excellent.
B. Very good (29 to 27): very good knowledge of all of the contents of the course. Very good ability to analyze the texts and to contextualize them in an appropriate way. The translation is formally correct, and hardly contains imprecisions.
C. Good (26-24): Good knowledge of the contents of the course. Adequate ability to describe and summarize the texts. The language used is simple but correct. The translation is good despite some grammatical errors.
D. Fair/sufficient (23-18): The work has sufficient knowledge, coherence, use of appropriate resources and quality of presentation to warrant a basic pass. The ability to analyze the texts is not wholly satisfactory. The work is very descriptive and does not fully address the issues raised by the question. The translation is not complete or is mostly incorrect.
E. Fail (below 18): The student demonstrates only a basic awareness of the course contents. The work is frequently confused and incoherent. Both the essay and the translation contain inaccuracies and major errors.
Contents
This course aims at providing students with an introduction to the short- and very short-story tradition from the mid-19th Century to contemporary fiction, drawing on key figures of the American literature such as, among the others, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, Tim O'Brien and Lydia Davis. Particular attention will be paid to short fiction theories, as well as to the evolution of the genre throughout main movements such as romanticism, realism, modernism and postmodernism.
Literary texts will be analyzed according to their formal structure and discussed on the backdrop of cultural and social history, with particular attention to stylistic aspects related to brevity.
Online Resources
More information
Non-attending students:
besides materials indicated in the reading list, non-attending students are invited to regularly check the e-learning and Moodle platform of the course for supplementary materials uploaded.
Further materials may be available for the students via e-Learning platform.