11542 |
WRIT 121 Beginning
Fiction Workshop |
Jedediah
Berry |
M . W . . |
11:50 -1:10 pm |
OLIN 307 |
PART |
This course involves both intensive reading and writing of
the short story, and is intended for students who have made prior forays into
the writing of narrative. Admission
is by portfolio, with cover letter, due to Prof. Berry in Shafer House on
Tuesday, November 26th by 5:00 pm. Class size: 12
11659 |
WRIT 123 First
Poetry Workshop |
Michael
Ives |
. T . Th . |
11:50 -1:10 pm |
OLIN 303 |
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, with cover
letter, to Prof. Ives in Shafer House on Tuesday, November 26th by
5:00 pm. Class
size: 12
11726 |
WRIT 221 Intermediate
Fiction Writing |
Teju Cole |
M . W . . |
11:50 -1:10 pm |
HEG 300 |
PART |
This
is an intermediate-level fiction workshop, suitable for students who have
either completed the First Fiction Workshop or done meaningful writing and
thinking about fiction on their own. In addition to critiquing student work, we
will read selected published stories and essays and complete a series of
structured exercises. Admission is by portfolio, with cover
letter, attention of Prof. Berry in Shafer House on Tuesday, November 26th
by
5:00 pm. Class
size: 12
11721 |
WRIT 224 Literary
Reportage |
Ian
Buruma |
M . W . . |
10:10 - 11:30 am |
OLIN 101 |
ELIT |
This
course will introduce students to the art of journalism. At best, journalism
can rise to literary excellence. We will be studying reportage as well as
criticism, looking at examples of both genres since Macaulay’s contributions to
the Edinburgh Review. The question is what lifts journalism to a higher
literary level. We will consider some famous examples: John Hersey on
Hiroshima, Michael Herr’s dispatches on the Vietnam War, Alma Guillermoprieto on Latin American politics, Hunter S.
Thompson on the party conventions, V.S. Naipaul on
Trinidad. Other questions dealt with in this course include the vexed one of
literary license. Reportage by Ryszard Kapuscinski and Curzio Malaparte is fine literature, to be sure. Both claimed to
be writing journalism. But they clearly made things up. Can a writer have it
both ways: the license of fiction, and the claim to be presenting the truth?
Finally, we will read some of the best critics, including Cyril Connolly,
Edmund Wilson, and Pauline Kael. Class size: 20
11942 |
WRIT 233 Hunting Human Beings: An Exploration of "The Profile" as a Journalistic Form |
Wyatt
Mason |
M . W . . |
3:10 -4:30 pm |
ASP 302 |
PART |
The mainstream magazine or newspaper profile has a long
history in English, one that dates back to Daniel Defoe’s pioneering efforts,
efforts that--significantly--ran in parallel to the emergence of the English
novel. In this course, we will read through the history of the profile in
English as we attempt to come to an understanding of how a written portrait of
a living person--Defoe’s profile of the criminal Jack Sheppard, for
example--differs in nature and form from a written portrait of an invented
person--such as Robinson Crusoe in Defoe’s novel by that name. A writing
workshop, this course will be focused, nonetheless, on reading. We will analyze
how writers through time and working on deadline have managed the formally
repetitive task of seizing facts about a person and forging them into a written
portrait that offers a distant reader a fair--and sometimes unfair--picture of
an individual human being. Readings will be drawn from the history of the
practice of journalism of this kind, and will include texts by Defoe, De
Quincey, Hazlitt, Twain, Rebecca West, Edith Wharton, Dorothy Parker, George
Orwell, Joan Didion, Janet Malcolm, Gay Talese, James Agee, Norman Mailer,
Katharine Boo, Jennifer Egan, David Foster Wallace, Leonard Michaels, James
Wood, and John Jeremiah Sullivan. Contact
instructor via email before enrollment.
Class size: 15
12050 |
WRIT 318 The
Personal Essay |
Susan Rogers |
. . W . . |
1:30 -3:50 pm |
OLIN 101 |
PART |
This course will involve equal parts reading and
writing and is for students who want to develop their creative writing, and
their analytic thinking. Readings will be taken from Philip Lopate’s
The Art of the Personal Essay, which
traces the long tradition of the personal essay from Seneca, through Montaigne
(the father of the personal essay) to contemporary stylists such as Richard
Rodriguez and Joan Didion. The personal essay is an
informal essay that begins in the details of every day life and expands to a
larger idea. Emphasis will be placed on reading closely to discover the craft
of the work: how scenes and characters are developed, how dialog can be used,
how the form can fracture from linear narrative to the collage. Student’s
work--three long essays--will be critiqued in a workshop format. This course is
for students with experience in writing workshops, fiction writers and poets
who want to explore another genre, and writers who
enjoy expressing ideas through the lens of personal experience. Those who bring
knowledge from other disciplines are encouraged to apply. Not available for on-line registration.
Admission is by portfolio, with cover letter, to Prof. Rogers in Shafer House by
5:00 p.m. on November 26th. Class size: 14
11660 |
WRIT 322 Advanced
Poetry Workshop |
Michael
Ives |
. T . Th . |
3:10 -4:30 pm |
OLIN 306 |
PART |
In this edition of the Advanced Poetry Workshop we will give
our attention to (meaning, read and write) what has been loosely termed “prose
poetry.” In addition to our encounters with such authors as Max Jacob, Andre
Breton, Rene Char, (in translation), W. S. Merwin, Russell Edson, John Ashbery,
David Antin, Rosemarie Waldrop, Leslie Scalapino, and Harryette Mullen, among
others, we will also explore the uses to which such materials as aphorisms,
industrial manuals, field guides, etc. can inform the construction of new,
“hybridized” creations. The goal will be to promote formal elasticity and
boundary defiance as a catalyst for the release of imaginative potentials. Admission is by portfolio, with cover letter, to Prof.
Ives in Shafer House on Tuesday, November 26th by 5:00 pm. Class size: 12
11567 |
WRIT 324 Advanced
Fiction Workshop |
Benjamin
Hale |
. . . Th . |
3:10 -5:30 pm |
OLIN 304 |
PART |
This is a workshop in prose fiction for advanced
students. Students will be expected to
submit at least two works of fiction to the workshop and critique their peers'
writings. Admission
is by portfolio, with cover letter, to Prof. Hale in Shafer House on Tuesday,
November 26th by 5:00 pm.
Class size: 12
11941 |
WRIT 325 Translating
"Illuminations," Illuminating Translation |
Wyatt
Mason |
. T . . . |
1:30 -3:50 pm |
OLINLC 120 |
PART |
Cross-listed: French
Studies Over
the course of the term, each of the students in this class will translate--in
its entirety--Arthur Rimbaud's series of prose poems that have come to be
called "Illuminations." The purpose of the class 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
French and English to be able to arrive at our own individual translations of
the poems. As a class, we will go through the poems line by line, discussing
the meanings of the words in the French originals and the boggling range of
alternatives they present in English. The class will function as a writing workshop
because learning to translate from a foreign language into English is writing
at its most pure: it is the key to learning how to write resourcefully and
powerfully, to knowing the weight and weft of words. Writing assignments will
be due every week, and will include both rigorous research into the French
language and deep engagement with every writer’s best friend, the O.E.D.
Translation will be supplemented by reading previous translations of Rimbaud,
as well as essays on translation—not theoretical essays but writing on
translation as a practice, a habit of mind. It is essential that students
wishing to enroll have both a passion for English usage and a background in the
French language. Contact instructor via
email before enrollment. Class size:
10
11944 |
WRIT 336 The Essay |
Luc Sante |
. . . Th . |
1:30 -3:50 pm |
OLIN 307 |
PART |
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
11719 |
WRIT 3500 B Advanced Fiction: The Novella |
Mona
Simpson |
TBA |
TBA |
TBA |
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: 10
11547 |
WRIT 405 Senior
Colloquium: Written Arts |
Mary
Caponegro |
M . . . . |
4:45 -6:00 pm |
OLINLC 115 |
|
Written
Arts Majors writing a project are required to enroll in the year-long Senior
Colloquium. Senior Colloquium is an
integral part of the 8 credits earned for Senior Project. An opportunity to share working methods,
knowledge, skills and resources among students, the colloquium explicitly
addresses challenges arising from research and writing on this scale, and
presentation of works in progress. A
pragmatic focus on the nuts and bolts of the project will be complemented with
life-after-Bard skills workshops, along with a review of internship and
grant-writing opportunities in the discipline. Senior Colloquium is designed to
create a productive network of association for student scholars and writers:
small working groups foster intellectual community, providing individual
writers with a wide range of support throughout this culminating year of
undergraduate study in the major. Class size: 35
11720 |
WRIT 422 Writing
Workshop:Non-Majors |
Robert
Kelly |
. . W . F |
11:50 -1:10 pm |
OLIN 101 |
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. No
portfolio is needed. Contact instructor via email before enrollment. Class size: 12