ENGH 355: Contemporary Fiction

ENGH 355-001: Contemporary Fiction
(Fall 2025)

12:00 PM to 01:15 PM MW

Music Theater Building 1004

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Section Information for Fall 2025

We'll concentrate on 21st-century North American fiction writers who close the gap between literary fiction and genre fiction while also doing weird things with time. Each novel will be in a different genre; most will mash various genres together, like queer epistolary science fiction or Indigenous ecological slasher or Appalachian plant horror. My short list: The Only Good Indians, The Bog Wife, Martyr!, This is How You Lose the Time War, The Dutch House, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Harlem Shuffle, and James. We'll read some, not all, of these. BA and BFA students will come away from this class with lots of new ideas about fiction, genre, and storytelling in the here and now.

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Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Introduces students to the variety and vitality of contemporary literature through the study of novels and/or short stories published within the past three or four decades, concentrating on US-based writers active in the present. May also include comparative attention to writers based internationally, as well as to the transnational dimensions of contemporary fiction. Offered by English. Limited to three attempts.
Recommended Prerequisite: Satisfaction of University requirements in 100-level English and in Mason Core literature.
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

The University Catalog is the authoritative source for information on courses. The Schedule of Classes is the authoritative source for information on classes scheduled for this semester. See the Schedule for the most up-to-date information and see Patriot web to register for classes.