“It had been my accidental reading of fiction and literary criticism that had evoked in me vague glimpses of life’s possibilities.”

--Richard Wright
“Reading Fiction”

“When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures”

--Flannery O’Connor
“The Fiction Writer and His Country”


This course is an introduction to various ways of reading “serious” fictions, imaginative prose narratives that challenge cultural norms, vs. reading popular fictions, which pander to convention. We will look at the differences initially and briefly but concentrate thereafter on serious fiction, reading and analyzing it, as well as formulating interpretations about what O’Connor would term “startling” fictions. Employing various critical approaches to what we read, we’ll figure out why we or others are startled.

This five-week course is designed to broaden your fictional reading repertoire, expose you to a variety of fictional authors, genres, styles, and historical/cultural movements, enhance your critical expression, and convince you that the critical reading of fiction can help in the critical reading of life. Requirements for this intensive 5-week course include daily readings, short critical researched writing in our departmental wired classrooms, a midterm, a final, and thoughtful, vocal participation in each class session.

Texts include Ann Charters, The Story and Its Writer, 7th compact edition