An Organon of Life Knowledge Genres and Functions of the Short Story in North America (Paperback)

Paperback. 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 Diaz, 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. The short story as a tool for acquiring knowledge of and about life? This study offers a fresh take on the the genre and explores how it constructs and circulates `life knowledge'. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…