Preface and Acknowledgements No access Pages 9 - 12
Introduction No access Pages 13 - 38
1. Literature, Life Knowledge, and ''Science for Living'' No access Pages 41 - 50
2. The Knowledge of Literature: Positions, Debates, and Approaches No access Pages 51 - 80
4. The Short Story as an Organon of Life Knowledge: An Epistemological Approach to the Genre No access Pages 83 - 92
5. Life Knowledge as Projection: The Cognitive Work of Short Stories No access Pages 93 - 100
6. Life-Changing Experiences and Turning Points: The Crisis-Ridden Life Knowledge of the Short Story No access Pages 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" No access Pages 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" No access Pages 141 - 162
9. Midlife Crisis as Turning Point for the ''Mature Moderns'': John Cheever''s "The Country Husband" No access Pages 163 - 176
10. Stories of ''Unlived'' and Secret Lives: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sherwood Anderson, Henry James, and James Thurber No access Pages 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" No access Pages 195 - 216
12. Understanding Life Retrospectively in Stories of Remembered Life: Willa Cather, William Saroyan, Russell Banks, Anthony Doerr No access Pages 217 - 230
Coda: The Short Story as Epistemological Fiction Alice Munro''s "What Do You Want to Know For?" No access Pages 231 - 248
