This course examines fictions whose basic reality would be familiar if not for the introduction of a magical element that undermines commonplace notions about what constitutes reality in the first place. The magical element can be a demon, talisman, physical transformation, miraculous transition in space or time, appearance of a second plane of existence, revelation of the unreality of the primary plane of existence, etc. Students will read Kafka's Metamorphosis, Queneau's The Blue Flowers, Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Sokolov's School for Fools, and short stories by Borges, Cortazar, and Nabokov.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 40

Prerequisites: None

Instructor: Weiner

Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: