Can fiction teach us how to live? This study offers a fresh take on the North American short story, exploring how the genre has engaged in the construction and circulation of 'life knowledge'. Echoing the resurgence of short story scholarship in recent years, it thus contributes a genre-focused perspective to the growing field of 'literature and knowledge' studies. Drawing on stories from the late 19th century to the present by authors such as Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eudora Welty, Junot Díaz, and Alice Munro, Michael Basseler examines how knowledge about life and how to live it is generically constituted and, vice versa, how literary genres such as the short story are embedded in broader cultural frameworks of knowledge production.
Preface and Acknowledgements Kein Zugriff Seiten 9 - 12
Introduction Kein Zugriff Seiten 13 - 38
1. Literature, Life Knowledge, and ''Science for Living'' Kein Zugriff Seiten 41 - 50
2. The Knowledge of Literature: Positions, Debates, and Approaches Kein Zugriff Seiten 51 - 80
4. The Short Story as an Organon of Life Knowledge: An Epistemological Approach to the Genre Kein Zugriff Seiten 83 - 92
5. Life Knowledge as Projection: The Cognitive Work of Short Stories Kein Zugriff Seiten 93 - 100
6. Life-Changing Experiences and Turning Points: The Crisis-Ridden Life Knowledge of the Short Story Kein Zugriff Seiten 101 - 110
7. The American Short Story and the Temporalization of Life in Modernity: Washington Irving''s "Rip Van Winkle" and F. Scott Fitzgerald''s "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" Kein Zugriff Seiten 111 - 134
8. Epistemological Uncertainty and Knowledge of Maturation in Stories of Initiation: Sherwood Anderson''s "I Want to Know Why", Eudora Welty''s "A Visit of Charity" and "A Memory", and Junot Díaz''s "Ysrael" Kein Zugriff Seiten 141 - 162
9. Midlife Crisis as Turning Point for the ''Mature Moderns'': John Cheever''s "The Country Husband" Kein Zugriff Seiten 163 - 176
10. Stories of ''Unlived'' and Secret Lives: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sherwood Anderson, Henry James, and James Thurber Kein Zugriff Seiten 177 - 194
11. Gerontophobia, Ageism, and the Wisdom of Later Life in Stories of Aging: Willa Cather''s "Old Mrs. Harris" and Eudora Welty''s "Old Mr. Marblehall" Kein Zugriff Seiten 195 - 216
12. Understanding Life Retrospectively in Stories of Remembered Life: Willa Cather, William Saroyan, Russell Banks, Anthony Doerr Kein Zugriff Seiten 217 - 230
Coda: The Short Story as Epistemological Fiction Alice Munro''s "What Do You Want to Know For?" Kein Zugriff Seiten 231 - 248
