12158

LIT 121   Beginning Fiction Workshop

Mary Caponegro

. T . Th .

3:10 -4:30 pm

OLINLC 118

PART

This course is intended for students who wish to learn to create short stories; it requires no prior workshop experience in fiction, but will entail various narrative exercises and close reading of short forms, both traditional and experimental. Submissions required. Admission is by portfolio. Class size: 14

 

12315

LIT 122    Nonfiction Writing Workshop

Susan Rogers

. T . Th .

3:10 – 4:30 pm

OLINLC 120

PART

This course is for students who want to write “creative” essays. Creative nonfiction is a flexible genre that includes memoir, the personal essay, collaged writings, portraits and more.  They can range from lyrical to analytical, meditative to whimsical. We will read a range of works and then offer up our own creative experiments. In particular we will pay attention to the relationship between language and ideas. Weekly writings and readings. No prior experience with creative nonfiction is needed.   Admission is by portfolio. Class size: 14

 

12312

LIT 123   First Poetry Workshop

Robert Kelly

. . W . F

11:50 -1:10 pm

OLIN 101

PART

Open to students who have never had a workshop in poetry, and who desire to experiment with making their own writing a means of learning, both about literature and poetry, and about the discipline of making works of art.  Attention is mainly on the student's own production, and in the individual’s awareness of what sorts of activities, rhythms, and tellings are possible in poetry, and how poets go about learning from their own work. The central work of the course is the student's own writing, along with the articulation, both private and shared, of response to it. Readings will be undertaken in contemporary and traditional poets, according to the needs of the group, toward the development of familiarity with poetic form, poetic movement, and poetic energy. Attendance at various evening poetry readings and lectures is required. Admission is by portfolio. Class size: 14

 

12391

THTR 212   Writing Political Theater

Chiori Miyagawa

. . W . .

1:30 – 4:30 pm

FISHER PAC

PART

Cross-listed:  Human Rights, Written Arts  Cross-listed:  Human Rights, Written Arts  By invitation of the instructor;  interested students should email the professor ([email protected]) with a paragraph of interest .  This course can be repeated for credit.  Class size: 12

 

12194

LIT 2215   Reading and Writing

Contemporary Cuba

Edie Meidav

. T . Th .

11:50 -1:10 pm

OLIN 101

ELIT

Cross-listed:  LAIS  This practice-based seminar explores the development of contemporary Cuban fiction. With some illumination from nonfiction as well as Cuba's vibrant cinematic culture, students explore, creatively and analytically, what it means to write fiction within a country functioning under the gaze of the panopticon. Writers such as Arenas, Carpentier, Garcia and Lezama Lima, read in translation, write within a matrix of influences: French surrealism, Afro-Cuban mythology, Communist revolutionary rhetoric, and the pain and porosity of diaspora. Independent research, analysis, and creative writing form part of the requirements of the course. Course conducted in English; an acquaintance with Spanish is helpful. Apply with a cover letter to Professor Meidav via campus mail by November 21st,  explaining your familiarity with Spanish (language/literature), your analytic/creative background in literature, and your interest in Cuba.    

Class size: 18

 

12216

LIT 222   Writer's Workshop:Poetry

Michael Ives

. T . Th .

3:10 -4:30 pm

OLINLC 206

PART

Students present their own work to the group for analysis and response. Readings in contemporary poets and the problematics of poetics. Attention will be paid to oral presentation of the poem.  Admission is by portfolio. Class size: 15

 

12140

LIT 223   Cultural Reportage

Celia Bland

. T . Th .

1:30 - 2:50 pm

HEG 308

PART

This is a course in practical criticism, with all that that entails: description, evaluation, comparison, judgment, as applied to books, music, pictures, and shows of all sorts, with emphasis on clarity, judiciousness, depth, and style. Weekly writing assignments will be paired with weekly reading assignments: William Hazlitt, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Baudelaire, Virginia Woolf, Edmund Wilson, Orhan Pamuk, Janet Malcolm, Rory Stewart, Adrienne Rich, Daniel Mendelsohn, Luc Sante, and many more.  Class size: 18

 

12159

LIT 321   Advanced Fiction Workshop

Paul LaFarge

. T . . .

3:10 -5:30 pm

OLIN 305

PART

A workshop in the creation of short stories, traditional or experimental, for experienced writers. Students will be expected to write several polished stories, critique each other's work, and analyze the fiction of published authors.  Admission is by portfolio, with cover letter, due to Professor LaFarge (Hopson 205)  by 5:00p.m. on November 21st Class size: 12

 

12166

LIT 3234   Translating Rimbaud

Wyatt Mason

M . . . .

4:40 -7:00 pm

OLIN 305

PART

Over the course of the term, each of the students in this class will translate Arthur Rimbaud's 6,000-word hybrid prose/verse poem, "Une saison en enfer." As a class, we will go through the poem line by line, in discussions about the meaning of the French, and the boggling range of alternatives in English. The purpose is not to come up with a collective translation of the poem, rather that our class discussions and independent research into the meanings of words inform us enough about both languages to be able to arrive at our own individual translations of the poem. The class will function as a writing workshop, with writing assignments due every week, both in researching the French language and writing in English. Translation will be supplemented by reading previous translations of Rimbaud, as well as essays on translation as a practice. Though the class will be taught in English, students wishing to enroll must have strong skills in the French language, intermediate level or above (or equivalent). Permission of the instructor required via email ([email protected]) before enrollment.  Class size: 12

 

12357

LIT 3362   The Essay

Luc Sante

. . . Th .

1:30 -3:50 pm

HEG 200

ELIT

This course will consider the essay form as well as its style, with a particular focus on voice, viewpoint, and rhetorical technique. Intensive study will be devoted to word choice, cadence, and even punctuation, in the belief that even the most minute aspects of writing affect the impact of the whole. The goal is to equip students with a strong but supple command of their instrument, a prerequisite for personal expression. There will be writing and reading (from Macauley to Didion) assignments each week, and exercises and discussion in class. Class size: 15

 

12575

LIT 338   Writing Nonfiction

Verlyn Klinkenborg

. . . Th .

1:30 -3:50 pm

OLIN 307

ELIT

This is a demanding seminar in the art of writing nonfiction prose. The emphasis is on "prose." You will be learning to make the best sentences you've ever made and to see what happens when you do so. That is a modest description, but don't let it deceive you. The goal of this seminar is to transform the way you write and the way you perceive the world around you. Our readings will include modern nonfiction classics--Joan Didion, George Orwell, John McPhee, Ryszard Kapuscinski, and many more. This is not a seminar in a single genre of nonfiction writing--memoir, profile, feature, etc. It's a seminar in the art and skills that underlie every genre.

Everyone writes every week on subjects of their own choosing, so plan accordingly. Class size: 15

 

12160

LIT 3500 B  Advanced Fiction: The Novella

Mona Simpson

 

By arrangement

 

PART

The second semester of a yearlong class, intended for advanced and serious writers of fiction, on the "long story" or novella form. Students will read novellas by Henry James, Flaubert, Chekhov, Flannery O'Connor, Allan Gurganus, Amy Hempel, and Philip Roth (and perhaps others) using these primary texts to establish a community of reference. We will discuss technical aspects of fiction writing, such as the use of time, narrative voice, openings, endings, dialogue, circularity, and editing, from the point of view of writers, focusing closely on the student's own work. The students will be expected to write and revise a novella, turning in weekly installments of their own work, and of their responses to the assigned reading.  The course will meet six times over the semester, dates to be announced.

Class size: 12

 

12574

LIT 422  Writing Workshop for Non-Majors

Susan Rogers

. . W . .

1:30 -3:50 pm

OLIN 304

PART

A course designed for juniors and seniors, who are not writing majors, but who might wish to see what they can learn about the world through the act of writing. Every craft, science, skill, discipline can be articulated, and anybody who can do real work in science or scholarship or art can learn to write, as they say, “creatively.” This course will give not more than a dozen students the chance to experiment with all kinds of writing, but in particular the creative essay. The creative essay is elastic allowing for meditations and rants, portraits and personal essays. We will read a range of works, then produce our own writings for critique. No portfolio is needed. 

Class size: 15