The Short Story in The United States

Choose either. 1. What is the function of the Mandarin Question in this story? 2. Pick up your favorite turn of phrase or rhetoric device. Try to explain honestly why it resonates with you. 3. We have studied plenty of stories about masculinity. To what extent can this be considered a story about feminitiy?

1. The book is extremely ethnic. Do you think this limits your outreach to a specific audience or is it a heartwarming contribution to cross-cultural literature? 2. Are gerbils metaphoric? Are they allusions to previous literature? 3. What did you have in mind by putting Tanya in a crib at camp? 4. How do you see the role of autobiography in literature and in your work in particular? 5. What are you trying to achieve in terms of style? 6. Once a psychiatrist told the student who is asking this question: "the closer you align your concept of yourself with your actual age at the time the saner you are". Is your work in any way a challenge or reaction to this? 7. How did you conceive of the structure for "Fabrications"? Does it mirror the "fugues" throughout the book? Are the sections supposed to trigger intimate memories that give us a perception of the public psyche?

a) According to  Linda Hutcheon ,  Postmodernity  is the condition in which we now live, and it should be distinguished from  Postmodernism , which refers to the cultural production and reflection that might embody its  critique  (the abovementioned questioning). b) According to  Fredric Jameson ,  Postmodernism  itself belongs to the "cultural logic of late capitalism", and as such there is no distinction between the critique and the condition (the critique, obeying to the laws of the production of culture, which rest on immateriality and profit, might annull itself). Even if Postmodernism  somehow blurs the distinctions between the high and the low  - the idea of equality in Postmodernism risks being overweighed by 1.  Relativism : the first of the important keywords, as it is the conterpart to 2.  Mistrust of grand narratives  (religion, politics, scientific positivism) 3.  De-differentiation  (namely of economics and culture), leading to the indecidability of cor

Native American Renaissance and the Chicano Civil Rights Movement are more or less contemporary and gained strength with the allegiance to civil rights protesters, and with the multiculturalist turn in US ideology. In the 1970s, the Chicana Feminists felt the need to assert and separate themselves as "new mestizas".

Think and write of either or more 1. Choose a passage of 1-2 sentences of your particular liking. Explain why it strikes you and what you think are its implications for the text. 2. Do some research on the Mexican legend of "La Llorona" and speculate on it as an intertext for the story. 3. In some instances, there seem to be breaks of syntax or logic in the stenteces. Identify one or more of these, and comment on its textual effect(s).

1.      How is nature viewed differently between the Gussucks and the native people, and how does Silko portray these differences? 2.     What role does color play in the story? 3.     The story opens with the sun in “the center of the sky.” By the end of the story, “the sun had finally broken loose from the ice.” What significance do you see the movement of the sun playing in the story and what does the sun symbolize? 4.     How does Silko portray the relationship between the Gussucks and the native people?

Answer one or more of the following questions about the first short story in A Contract With God (titled the same thing): 1. What role does religion and ethnicity play in the story A Contract With God? 2. How does Frimme react to his daughter's death? If God really did violate their contract, is Frimme justified in his actions afterward? 3. What is the significance of the young boy finding the old contract at the end of the story, and what is the significance of how he finds it? 4. What is the role of class struggle and the American Dream in the story?

After the heat of the debate over "the death of the novel" (1960s and 1970s), the 1980s saw the  flourishment of the graphic novel (not really a genre, but a format, which, like comics, uses sequential art, but can be read - either in collected issues or in a single volume - as a stand-alone story. Many are personal narratives and quite as many are superhero stories). Art Spiegelman, Maus (1980-1991) Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns (1986) Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen (1986/1987) Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, The Killing Joke (1988)

Answer either, or more than one: 1. Here is an account of the short-story cycle exhibit in which Will Eisner's A Contract with Work is featured: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/05/03/short-story-cycles . What to you are the most significant links between the stories in this book? 2. As your classmates who will be presenting on Tuesday will deal mostly with the first eponymous story, "A Contract with God", we might for now focus on "The Street Singer" and "The Super". What can you say about class representation in both of these stories? And/or sexuality? 3. Here several visual elements are treated aesthetically, just like in the common short story linguistic elements are arranged in surprising ways. What would you say are the most striking visual markers in either "The Street Singer" or "The Super" or both? 4. In what way does the visual representation in this work differ from the common comic strip (for the fans of the genre

What elements of insecurity do you see in this piece, and how do they affect the behavior of the characters? What instances of divergence between showing and telling do you find in the short story and what do they convey? What elements of masculinity do you see in this story, and how do they affect Ralph throughout the night?