Works of fiction, and especially short stories, give us a chance to look closely at life, and to do so from multiple vantage points. The best stories do not allow us to find easy morals or ideological solutions to the conflicts they present. They often treat the conflicts as irresolvable on one level, something to be beheld and transformed rather than straightforwardly overcome. In this seminar, we’ll read and discuss a selection of short stories by Anton Chekhov, a writer universally regarded as a master of the form, to see how he renders characters and dramatic conflicts that transform our perspectives.