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Lecturer(s)
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Dvořáková Šárka, Mgr.
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Peprník Michal, prof. PhDr. Dr.
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Jelínková Ema, Mgr. Ph.D.
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Course content
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1. Introduction: Commonplacing, Literary Communities, and Contemporary American Short Fiction - Introduction to the commonplacing project, regional literary communities, and resources for reading contemporary fiction. 2. Dispossession to Land Back: Narrative Voice - Sherman Alexie - What You Pawn I Will Redeem (2003) - m.s. RedCherries - poems (2024) 3. Immigrant Families, Assimilation, and ICE: Language and Code-Switching - Junot Díaz - Fiesta, 1980 (1996) 4. Wealth Inequality: The American Dream and Epistolary Format - George Saunders - The Semplica Girl Diaries (2012) 5. Black Lives Matter and Mass Incarceration: Footnotes of Self - Indya Finch - Walls (2021) 6. Persisting Patriarchy: Making the "Mundane" Monstrous - Rachel Yoder - The Promise (2026) 7. Illusion of Wellness: Numbing Unreliable Narration - Ottessa Moshfegh - Bettering Myself (2013) 8. Queer Bodies and Queer Communities: Desire and Experimental Form - Carmen Maria Machado - Real Women Have Bodies (2017) - Visual Artists - selected works 9. The Value of University: Institutional Absurdity and Academic Life - Julie Schumacher - How My Light Is Spent (2026) 10. Health Care: Vignettes and Epiphanies - Denis Johnson - Emergency! (1991) 11. Conclusion: What Can the Short Story Do?
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Learning activities and teaching methods
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Monologic Lecture(Interpretation, Training), Dialogic Lecture (Discussion, Dialog, Brainstorming), Work with Text (with Book, Textbook)
- Homework for Teaching
- 60 hours per semester
- Preparation for the Course Credit
- 20 hours per semester
- Attendace
- 20 hours per semester
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Learning outcomes
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SUMMER 25/26: INTRODUCTION TO CRIME FICTION This course introduces students to the development of crime fiction through selected key texts of Anglo-American traditions from the nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Rather than offering a comprehensive survey, the course traces major shifts in how crime, investigation, justice, and meaning are represented, moving from early moralizing narratives through classical detective fiction, hard-boiled writing, noir, police procedural, and postmodern reconfigurations of the genre. Students will learn to read crime fiction not only as popular narrative but as a historically situated literary form that responds to social anxiety, modernity, and changing concepts of order, authority, and truth.
By the end of the course, students will be able to: - identify formal, stylistic, and thematic characteristics of contemporary American literary short fiction - analyze how contemporary short-story writers use and challenge conventions of the genre, including experimental narrative structures, voice, perspective, and form - situate individual works within their relevant social, political, cultural, and regional contexts in the United States - critically evaluate how contemporary short fiction represents issues such as race, immigration, economic inequality, gender, sexuality, incarceration, health, and education - support interpretations of literary texts through close reading and discussion - develop and communicate independent interpretations of contemporary short fiction through written assignments, commonplacing, and collaborative discussion
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Prerequisites
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Good knowledge of the English language and willingness to engage with new texts that are developing how we engage with and understand short fiction as a genre.
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Assessment methods and criteria
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Analysis of Creative works (Music, Pictorial,Literary), Written exam
Students are expected to: - have completed UL00/ULOO successfully - complete assigned readings - prepare short written or oral responses to reading questions - actively participate in group and class discussions - pass the credit test
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Recommended literature
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Nickerson, Catherine Ross. (2010). The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction.
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Priestman, Martin. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction.
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Rollyson, Carl. (2008). Critical Survey of Mystery and Detective Fiction.
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Rzepka, Charles, and Lee Horsley. (2010). A Companion to Crime Fiction. Wiley.
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Scaggs, John. (2005). Crime Fiction.
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Winks, Robin. (1998). Mystery and Suspense Writers. Charles Scribner's Sons.
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