ECTS credits ECTS credits: 6
ECTS Hours Rules/Memories Student's work ECTS: 99 Hours of tutorials: 3 Expository Class: 24 Interactive Classroom: 24 Total: 150
Use languages Spanish, Galician, English
Type: Ordinary Degree Subject RD 1393/2007 - 822/2021
Departments: English and German Philology
Areas: English Philology
Center Faculty of Philology
Call: First Semester
Teaching: With teaching
Enrolment: Enrollable
1. To recognise the main features of a short story.
2. To be aware of the social and cultural background in which the selected short stories were conceived and published.
3. To be able to discuss orally and in written form critical essays on short stories.
4. To become familiar with the most important voices of English, Irish and American short fiction.
5. To master the techniques of textual analysis of short fiction.
1. The British Short Story (4 weeks)
Virginia Woolf “An Unwritten Novel”
Katherine Mansfield “The Garden Party”
Alan Sillitoe “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”
Doris Lessing “The Old Chief Mshlanga”
Jean Rhys “Let Them Call It Jazz”
Hanif Kureishi “My Son the Fanatic”
Angela Carter “The Bloody Chamber”
Jackie Kay "Out of Hand"
2. The Irish Short Story (3 weeks)
James Joyce “Eveline”
Frank O’Connor “Guests of the Nation”
Mary Lavin “Lilacs”
Maeve Kelly “Orange Horses”
Fiona Barr “The Wall Reader”
Bernard MacLaverty “Walking the Dog”
3. The American Short Story (5 weeks)
Edgar Allan Poe “The Cask of Amontillado”
Kate Chopin “Ripe Figs”
Katherine Ann Porter "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"
William Faulkner “A Rose for Emily”
Ernest Hemingway “Cat in the Rain”
Eudora Welty “Livvie”
Amy Tan “Two Kinds”
Sandra Cisneros “One Holy Night”
Alice Munro “How I Met My Husband”
Lee Maracle "Charlie"
Remaining weeks: oral presentations
PRIMARY WORKS: The professor will facilitate the students' access to the selection of short stories on the obligatory reading list.
BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Achilles, Jochen and Ina Bergmann, eds. Liminality and the short story: boundary crossings in American, Canadian, and British writing. N.Y.: Routledge, 2015.
Delaney, Paul and Adrian Hunter, eds. The Edinburgh companion to the short story in English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2019.
COMPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Baldwin, Dean. Virginia Woolf: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1989.
Bowlby, Rachel. Feminist Destinations and Further Essays on Virginia Woolf. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1997.
Harrington, Ellen Burton. Scribbling women & the short story form: approaches by American & British women writers. New York: Peter
Lang, cop. 2008.
Head, Dominic. The Modernist short story: a study in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Howells, Coral Ann. The Cambridge companion to Margaret Atwood. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, cop. 2006.
Hunter, Adrian, The Cambridge introduction to the short story in English. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Iftekharrudin, Farhat (Ed). Postmodern approaches to the short story. Westport: Praeger, 2003.
Ingman, Heather. A history of the Irish short story. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Kobler, J.F. Katherine Mansfield: a study of the short fiction. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.
Lamb, Robert Paul. Art matters: Hemingway, craft, and the creation of the modern short story. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, cop. 2010.
Levine, Stuart and Susan Levine (Eds.). The Short fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: an annotated edition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1990.
Lohafer, Susan and Jo Ellyn Clarey (Eds.) Short story theory at a crossroads. Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, cop. 1989.
Malcolm, C.A. & D. Malcolm (Eds.) A Companion to the British and Irish Short Story. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
May, Charles. E. Edgar Allan Poe: a study of the short fiction. New York: Twayne, cop. 1991.
May, Charles E. The Short story: the reality of artifice. New York: Twayne, cop. 1995.
Reid, Ian. The Short story. London: Routledge, cop. 1991.
Stevick, Philip (Ed). The American short story: 1900-1945: a critical history. Boston : Twayne, 1984.
Storey, Michael L. Representing the troubles in Irish short fiction. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, cop. 2004.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE WEB
Hühn, Peter et al. (eds.): the living handbook of narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg University. URL = http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/
MLA Academic Style Manual: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatti…
CB1, CB2, CB3, CB4, CB5, CG1, CG8 of the Approved Report.
- Knowledge of the linguistic and thematic features of nineteenth and twentieth-century English, Irish and North-American literature.
- Acquaintance with critical vocabulary, as necessary for oral and written analysis of short stories.
- Ability to organise ideas, to express and summarise them in English.
Introductory lectures will alternate with seminars where short stories and their literary background will be discussed and analysed.
Students are expected to attend both lectures and seminars, as well as to actively participate in class for the analysis of the stories.
Students will make one final oral presentation.
Use of the USC Virtual Campus for announcements and reading material.
First opportunity:
-Final exam: 70% of the final mark.
-Tasks: 30% of the final mark. One oral and written presentation (10%) and participation in class (20%). IMPORTANT: Students must pass the exam to have their Tasks mark added to the exam mark.
Second opportunity (June):
The mark obtained in Tasks and participation during the course will be maintained for the second opportunity. Students who have not participated in these activities during the course will lose the corresponding 30% of the final mark.
Students who have been exempted from attendance will be assessed on the basis of one final exam which will count 100% of the final mark.
Students who can prove they have a timetable incompatibility or who are repeating the course can choose, before October 15, whether they want to be assessed on the basis of one final exam which will count 100% of their final mark or whether they prefer the standard assessment of 70% (final exam) and 30% (Tasks and participation in class). The student repeating the course may keep the mark obtained in Tasks in the previous course.
The literary texts must be read in English and the exams and assignments must be written also in English. Correct language use will be taken into account when marking these activities.
For cases of fraudulent conduct in exercises or exams, the USC "Normativa de avaliación do rendemento académico dos estudantes e de revisión de cualificacións" will apply to USC students.
Estimated study time (preparing assignments, reading obligatory texts, office hours and preparing the exam): 99hours.
It should be underlined that this course is optional and therefore all the different aspects of this programme should be given careful consideration before registering in it.
-Reading prior to classes is required.
-Attendance to seminars and lectures, and participation in the scheduled activities are compulsory, unless justified absence is authorised by the professor or the Dean's Office.
In accordance with article 9.2.a of the USC Student Statute and article 36 of the Organic Law of the University System, the use of electronic devices (mobile phones, tablets, computers, etc.) is not authorized in the lectures and seminars except when expressly authorized by the professor.
Manuela Palacios Gonzalez
Coordinador/a- Department
- English and German Philology
- Area
- English Philology
- Phone
- 881811892
- manuela.palacios [at] usc.es
- Category
- Professor: University Lecturer
Irene Lens Fernández
- Department
- English and German Philology
- Area
- English Philology
- irene.lens.fernandez [at] usc.es
- Category
- Ministry Pre-doctoral Contract
| Monday | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 11:00-12:00 | Grupo /CLE_01 | English | C03 |
| 12:00-13:00 | Grupo /CLE_01 | English | C03 |
| Wednesday | |||
| 09:00-10:00 | Grupo /CLIS_01 | English | C06 |
| 01.10.2025 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLE_01 | D06 |
| 01.10.2025 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_01 | D06 |
| 06.10.2025 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_01 | D06 |
| 06.10.2025 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLE_01 | D06 |