English 325-001
The Art of Fiction: Magical Realism Across Continents
Instr: Roberts, Sheila
Office: CRT 597; 229-5434
e-mail: svrob@uwm.edu
Office hours: MW; 1:30-2:30pm
Course Information: MW; 11:00am-12:15pm; CRT 124
Course Description
Realism and its relation, Magical Realism, spring from the same ancestry: Romantic and Gothic story telling; medieval dreams and visions; trickery; and game-playing. They connect under the assumption that the marvelous or supernatural are ordinary, everyday matters and reside within the rational and the material. Magical Realism, like Realism itself, may have these intentions - to critique or mock conventional cultural norms; to distort the (sometimes rigid) conventions of causality; to question materiality and the dominance of the conscious mind, and the hypocrisy of the powerful. However, we all know how to differentiate between the strategies of unquestioned Realism and the sometimes outrageous exploits of Magical Realism.
In this course students will be required to read several novels from various countries; to write response papers on them and to write either critical/theoretical papers or short fiction of their own, at mid-term and at the end of the semester.
Required Reading:
The Music of Chance by Paul Auster (American)
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino (Italian)
Nighwood by Djuna Barnes (Anglo-American)
The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (Caribbean)
Kikuyu by Etienne Van Heerden (South African)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Canadian)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbian)
| Four response papers (2-3pp) | 40% |
| One mid-term essay or short story (5-6pp) | 20% |
| An end-of-the-semester essay or short story (8pp) | 30% |
| Punctuality, attendance and class participation | 10% |
