Reading as a Writer: Losers

Undergraduate / Graduate

It's very boring to talk about winners," Umberto Ecco once said. "The real literature always talks about losers." In this class, we shall embrace all manner of failures, no-accounts, and deadbeats, those unlikely 'heroes' around which good fiction often rotates, considering how they intrigue us with their flaws and failings, but also how they can present pitfalls at the levels of plot (lack of agency), tone (reward vs. punishment), and reader sympathy. Through an array of short fiction, as well as films and a hybrid novel, this course aims to uncover the ways narrative craft can infuse stories about shiftless and inept protagonists with a sense of curation, poignancy, and meaning. Students will also attempt their own short story versions of "loser lit," to be workshopped by the class. Expectations will, of course, be very low.