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