Australian short stories WiSe 2022/23, Mark Stein

Writing "Down Under": Indigenous, migrant, and post/colonial short stories 

As Stephen Torre has suggested, "the short story is both diagnostic and constitutive of trends in Australian literary creativity." He adds that the genre displays "a globalised literary imagination, with many of today's authors producing work for an international audience” (2009). In this seminar, we will first read up on concepts of and approaches to the short story genre; on Australian history; and then analyze a range of short stories from Australia by different authors: Indigenous, migrant, or post/colonial; cisgender or queer; urban or rural. The earliest story on the syllabus dates from the late nineteenth century, the latest one from this decade. Authors include Henry Lawson, Henry Handel Richardson, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Patrick White, Oodgeroo, Mena Abdullah, David Malouf, Frank Moorhouse, Gerald Mumane, Murray Bail, Peter Carey, Alexis Wright, Tim Winton, and more.

Participants are required to complete the set reading each week, participate in class discussion, and give an oral presentation or chair a session.

Kurs im HIS-LSF