Short Fiction and Knowledge for Living (with Michael Basseler)

How does the short story form contribute to our understanding of life and the world? To find out, listen to this episode of the podcast, in which I get to interview prof. Michael Basseler, from Justus-Liebig University, author of the monograph An Organon of Life Knowledge: Genres and Functions of the Short Story in North America.Works cited:Michael Basseler, An Organon of Life Knowledge: Genres and Functions of the Short Story in North America (Transcript Verlag, 2019).Ottomar Ette, ‘Literature as Knowledge for Living, Literary Studies as Science for Living’, PMLA 125.4 (2010), pp. 977-93.Charles Baxter, ‘Against Epiphanies’, in Burning Down the House. Essays on Fiction. (Graywolf Press, 1997), pp. 51-78. Sherwood Anderson, ‘I Want to Know Why’, in The Triumph of the Egg (W. B. Huebsch, 1921). Washington Irving, ‘Rip Van Winkle’, in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories (Penguin, 2014).Zach Williams, Beautiful Days (Penguin, 2024).Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.