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. British short story (4 weeks)
Introduction to the short story
Virginia Woolf “Kew Gardens”
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”
2. 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. North 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"
3 remaining weeks: oral presentations; justifications of autonomous learning; exam practice.
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 alternate with seminars to analyse short stories and their context. Individual and collective tutorials will aim to discuss remainig doubts.
Students are expected to attend both lectures and seminars, as well as participate in class for the analysis of the short stories.
Students will make a final oral presentation.
Independent learning activities will be justified at the end of the course: readings of literary criticism, viewing of films or documentaries, attendance at external lectures, etc.
Use of the USC Virtual Campus for notices, reading material and occasional delivery of tasks.
First opportunity:
Final exam: 50% of the final mark.
Assignments: 50% of the final mark: Oral presentation (15%), class participation (25%) and complementary academic activities of independent learning (10%). IMPORTANT: Students must pass the final exam to have the mark of their assignments added to that of the final exam.
Second opportunity (June):
The assignments and class participation mark will be maintained for the second opportunity. Students who have not participated in these activities during the course will lose the corresponding 50% of the final mark.
Students officially exempted from attendance will be assessed with an exam, the mark of which will constitute 100% of the final mark.
Students who can prove a timetable incompatibility or those repeating the course, having passed the Assignments mark in the previous year, can choose, before October 1, whether they wish to be assessed with a final exam that will count as 100% of the final mark, or whether they prefer the normal assessment of 50% (final exam) and 50% (assignments and class participation). The students retaking the course can keep the mark obtained in the assignments of the previous academic year.
Class attendance: USC regulations will be followed regarding the mandatory attendance at lectures and seminars, as well as the mandatory participation in the scheduled activities. In the case of a JUSTIFIED ABSENCE that is documented and accepted by the teacher or the Dean's Office, an alternative assessment of the missed participation will be assigned. Unjustified absence from class in an assigned activity will imply a mark of 0 in that activity. The maximum number of hours with unjustified absences is 5; in the case of more than 5 hours of unjustified absences, the students will lose de 50% of the Assignments mark.
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.
A very attentive reading of the stories until you fully understand the details of the plot, characters, socio-historical context, etc.
Consultation of at least one critical source for each story.
Keeping a record of autonomous learning activities for final submission: readings of literary criticism and the socio-cultural context of the stories; viewing of films and documentaries about the writers on the syllabus; attendance at conferences and other activities related to cultural and literary analysis.
The stories must be read before the corresponding class.
E-mails that do not come from the student's corporate address (USC address) will not be answered.
In accordance with the provisions of article 36 of Ley Orgánica del Sistema Universitario (LOSU), which specifies in its section c) among the duties of students: ‘Obervar las directrices del profesorado y de las autoridades universitarias’, the rules for proper performance in the classroom will be as follows:
1- In both expository and interactive classes, the use of mobile phones is not authorised. Tablets or laptops may be used exclusively for taking notes and consulting material on the Virtual Campus.
2- Students are strongly requested to arrive at the classroom on time.
3- Food must not be consumed in the classroom.
4- Students are not allowed to leave the room before the teacher declares the class over, except in cases of unexpected malaise.
Manuela Palacios Gonzalez
Coordinador/a- Department
- English and German Philology
- Area
- English Philology
- Phone
- 881811892
- manuela.palacios [at] usc.es
- Category
- Professor: University Lecturer
| 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 |
| 01.12.2026 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_01 | D06 |
| 01.12.2026 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLE_01 | D06 |
| 06.05.2026 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_01 | D06 |
| 06.05.2026 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLE_01 | D06 |