Ford, Lida Mayy Catherine2020-09-292020-09-292020https://hdl.handle.net/1794/2574663 pagesInspired by the concept of “zeroness” as defined by the late Swiss writer Robert Walser, A Great and Spherical Zero is a collection of fiction that addresses what it means to be small, or find smallness, and how greatness is often hidden in small places. Using a variety of experimental writing techniques, the 15 stories in this collection play with the idea, posed by Walser, of zeroness. The juxtaposition of what it means to be both “great” and “zero” is central to this collection. The pieces are additionally unified by their attempt to experiment with literary form – ranging from the most extreme works of stream of consciousness representation to the more traditional stories that feature newly assertive narrative control. The collection is a representative of my inspiration from four years of undergraduate study focusing on the modernist/postmodernist literature of the 20th century, and an attempt to add my own work to the history of experimental literature.en-USComparative LiteratureCreative WritingFictionWritingRobert WalserExperimental WritingFlash FictionPoetryThesis/Dissertation