Writing Courses
Writing the Human Predicament
K30.1210 4 CR SSI: TR 1:30-4:30 Jones
This course questions the boundaries of traditional discourse and asks what it means to write about life. We will travel vicariously, metaphorically, and physically—seeking grist for our creative mill. Our primary goal is to find fascinating and mind-expanding sources of inspiration for writing prose in everyday life. We will explore dramatic lifestyles and scenes through biographical and autobiographical naratives, as well as critical exposition. Texts may include Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex; Pauline Réage, Story of O; J.T. LeRoy, Sarah; Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors; Gabriel García Márquez, Living to Tell the Tale; Amy Bloom, Normal; Phoebe Hoban, Basquiat; and videos such as Bird, Paris is Burning, Piñero, and Basquiat.
Telling Truths: The Skill of Autobiography
K30.1316 4 CR SSI: MW 10:00-1:00 Weisser
How can one tell the “truth” about one’s life in narrative form? In this course we will explore the pleasures and dangers of telling stories about our lives through writing autobiographical essays, as well as through reading the autobiographies of selected others. Readings may include texts by Joan Didion, Nancy Mairs, Mary Karr, Augusten Burroughs, and Alexandra Fuller. We will analyze the way in which self-narrative is constructed from the tangled materials of real life, how we read and understand the life writing of others, and how others’ stories can influence our own. Topics include memory, identity, voice, point of view, the body, and relationships.
Writing Your Life: The Memoir
K30.1310 4 CR SSII: TR 1:30-4:30 Foley
This course combines an exploration of the literary genre of memoir with a workshop in writing about your own life. While reading and analyzing a variety of twentieth-century American memoirs—beginning with Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican—students will use these works as models for evoking sense memories, recreating scenes, extrapolating plots from lives, placing lives in history, and discovering one’s own voice. Topics include the relationship between memoir, autobiography, and fiction; the impact of gender, class, and race on writing; and both theoretical and practical questions about the craft of writing. Readings may include Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican, James McBride’s The Color of Water, Jill Kerr Conway’s The Road from Coorain, David Sedaris’s Naked, and William Zinsser’s Inventing the Truth.
The Journal in the City
K30.1324 4 CR SSII: MW 1:30-4:30 Blythe
Literary journalists have long been inspired by the urban muse. Paris, London, Berlin, Prague and New York have nurtured such noted journalists as Rilke, Woolf, Kafka, Walter Benjamin and Allen Ginsberg. As we look into the journals of these intriguiing writers we will immerse ourselves in the New York City milieu, asking what is the impact of the city on the text, as well as examining the effect of the city on our own journals. As writers, how do we interact with the city? Whom do we become in our journals in the city? We will keep and develop literary journals for the duration of the course: our “New York City Journals.”