Preliminary Web Course Description
*Please note: This is a preliminary web course description only. The department reserves the right to change without notice any information in this description. The final, binding course outline will be distributed in the first class of the semester.

School of English and Theatre Studies

Course Code:
ENGL*3940*03	
 Course Title:
 Seminar: Form, Genre & Literary Value
 Topic for Sec. 03: 
 Autobiography, Ficticity, Allegory	
Date of Offering:
W 17
Tu./Th. 2:30-3:50	

Course Instructor:  
Dr. J.R. (Tim) Struthers	

Brief Course Synopsis: ENGL*3940 has been designated a writing- and presentation-intensive course, and for each section of this core English seminar the choices of focus and texts and approach are made by the particular instructor.  In my view, such a course provides a notable opportunity for seminar members and their instructor to grow both as individuals and as a collectivity, to intensify and to broaden our perspectives.  The style of this course and the nature of the particular topic chosen for this section of the course offer a chance to develop and possibly radically alter our understanding of traditionally distinct, now often merging art forms, of their values to ourselves and to others.  As one very important facet of this objective, members of this seminar should consider themselves not simply invited but encouraged to reflect on and to explore the potential that the three different elements “Autobiography; Ficticity; Allegory” comprising the topic of this seminar contain for enhancing our thinking and writing in ways that give more scope to the individual imagination.
     This course will aim to develop an appreciation for and an enjoyment of the genres of the short story, the novella, and the story sequence or story cycle as practised by contemporary Canadian/American/world writer Clark Blaise (1940-    ) and two of his important precursors, Canadian/European/world writer Mavis Gallant (1922-2014) and Irish/world writer James Joyce (1882-1941), in the context of theoretical studies of autobiography, the short story, and allegory.  Alternatively, we could say that what we will be exploring is what it means to read a short story or novella or story sequence or story cycle autobiographically, fictively, and allegorically.  Required theoretical reading for the course include:  Linda Anderson’s Autobiography (2nd ed.), Charles E. May’s The Short Story: The Reality of Artifice, and Jeremy Tambling’s Allegory.	
Course Format:

SEMINAR / DISCUSSION	
Methods of Evaluation and Weights: 
10% >	First Seminar Presentation  (15 minutes, including intervals for discussion; to be accompanied by an approx. 1½-page outline of arguments and examples in point form)
10% >	Second Seminar Presentation  (15 minutes, including intervals for discussion; to be accompanied by an approx. 1½-page outline of arguments and examples in point form) 
10% >	Third Seminar Presentation  (15 to maybe 20 minutes, including intervals for discussion; to be accompanied by an approx. 1½-page outline of arguments and examples in point form) 
10%> 	Reading Journal in 10 parts of approx. 100 words apiece (that is, totalling approx. 1,000 words) consisting of double-spaced typed commentaries on assorted theoretical and fictional works identified by the instructor
30%>  2,500-word (creative / critical / research) special project
20% >	Two-Part Out-of-Class Take-Home
        Final – each part worth 10% and
        each part approx. 750 words           
10% >	Overall Effort, Participation, Improvement (including work on Take-Home Final Exam) 
TOTAL NUMBER OF WORDS OF FORMAL PROSE REQUIRED :
approx.5,000 words (incl. approx. 1,200 to 1,500 words in total for the Two-Part 
Out-of-Class Take-Home Final Exam)     	

Texts and/or Resources Required (e.g. Internet access, specific textbook title, lab kit, etc.)
ANDERSON, Linda.  Autobiography.  2nd ed.  The New Critical Idiom.  Abingdon, Eng.: Routledge, 2011.  
BLAISE, Clark.  Southern Stories.  The Selected Stories of Clark Blaise.  Vol. 1.  Introd. Fenton Johnston.  Erin, ON: Porcupine's Quill, 2000. 
BLAISE, Clark.  Pittsburgh Stories.  The Selected Stories of Clark Blaise, Vol. 2.  Introd. Robert Boyers.  Erin, ON: Porcupine's Quill, 2001.
BLAISE, Clark.  Montreal Stories.  The Selected Stories of Clark Blaise, Vol. 3.  Introd. Peter Behrens.  Erin, ON: Porcupine's Quill, 2003.
GALLANT, Mavis.  Montreal Stories.  Selected and introd. Russell Banks.  Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2004. 
JOYCE, James.  Dubliners.  Ed. Margot Norris.  New York: W.W. Norton, xxxx.  Norton Critical Editions.
MAY, Charles E.  The Short Story: The Reality of Artifice.  New York: Routledge, 2002.  ISBN 0-415-93883-X.
TAMBLING, Jeremy.  Allegory.  The New Critical Idiom.  Abingdon, Eng.: Routledge, 2010.  ISBN-13: 978-0-415-34006-9.	

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