Courses
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CRWR 201 - Introduction to Creative Writing
Making Fiction
In this course, students will learn about and experiment with the tools of fiction writing. Students will complete numerous generative, exploratory forays into the world of fiction, honing their craft as well as considering the ethical, political, and personal implications that arise when one transmits language to the page. Our reading list will be comprised of work by contemporary writers who represent the range of what gets classified as fiction today, such as Carmen Maria Machado, Percival Everett, Stephen Graham Jones, Claire-Louise Bennett, N.K. Jemisin, and Poupeh Missaghi. Class sessions will be used primarily for discussion of assigned readings and student work.
The Short Story
In this course students will write short stories, and read the work of their classmates as well as that of published authors. Close attention will be paid to the narrative strategies (e.g. variations in narration, temporal manipulation, and point of view) used by writers such as Alice Munro, Jamaica Kincaid, Lydia Davis, George Saunders, and Ted Chiang to help the students in writing their own fiction. We will consider and employ various strategies when reading and responding to the work of peers. Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and student work in progress, along with exercises and broader discussions.
Writing Fiction
This course will serve as an introduction to the writing of original fiction. We will read and discuss published works in order to familiarize ourselves with works of publishable merit and practice workshop techniques in approaching this material as well as our own. We will read works by contemporary writers such as Rebecca Roanhoarse, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah,聽 Amy Bonnaffons, NoViolet Bulawayo, Isle McElroy, Kehan Orhan, and Carmen Maria Machado. Students will write short stories and submit these to the workshop for discussion, where we will learn to offer serious and constructive criticism.聽By the end of this course students will have a deeper understanding of fiction and the craft of writing, a growing sense of their own voices and aesthetic interests, and a small body of their very own creative work.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 207 - Introduction to Creative Nonfiction
Creating Nonfiction
In this course, we shall look at the personal essay and the memoir. What are the overlaps between these distinct yet related genres? What distinguishes them from one another? How to write memory? How to cultivate voice? How to convey "truth"? How to render the self? How to portray others? We shall read works by writers such as Baldwin, Morrison, and Nabokov, as well as contemporary masters of the form. Drawing from these writers and their works for inspiration, we shall work our way toward crafting our own experiences. Students will submit their own creative non-fiction for workshop discussion, where we shall learn to offer serious and constructive criticism. Assignments will include weekly reading of published works, writing for workshop, and in-class exercises. At the end of this course, students will have a deeper understanding of the form and the craft of writing, as well as a small portfolio of creative non-fiction.聽
The Personal Essay
For many of us, our first impression of the personal essay is that it's basically autobiography, or maybe memoir. And this is often the case. But "personal" is also about a tone, a relationship with the reader, a sense of intimacy established through the use of the first person. Which is to say that the personal essay may look outward as much as it looks inward. In this workshop students will write personal essays that cover a range of genres (such as memoir, analytic meditation, and portrait) and discuss the work of writers such as Montaigne, Didion, and Baldwin, as well as more contemporary essayists. Students will also read and discuss the work of their peers.聽 We will consider and employ聽various strategies when reading and responding to student work. 聽Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and student work in progress, along with exercises and broader discussions.聽
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 224 - Introduction to Poetry
Introduction to Poetry Workshop
This is an introduction to writing and workshopping poems. Students will engage with weekly writing exercises and in-depth class discussion while reading a wide range of published works to develop critical skills and creative strategies beneficial to a sustainable writing practice. Emphasis will be placed on encouraging and reviewing student work within a workshop format.
First Books, Second Books
In this course, we will study poetic tradition and forms, and consider questions of literary culture in the context of English-language, multi-lingual, and translated poems across time, with particular emphasis on the texts of contemporary poets and contemporary translation. We will learn about the cultural construction of poetic forms, from encoded oral tradition to poems of survivance and resistance. Students will be expected to write 8-12 new poems over the course of the semester.
Intro Poetry: Forms & the Lyric
In this course, we will study poetic tradition and聽forms, and consider questions of literary culture in the context of English-language, multi-lingual, and translated poems across time, with particular emphasis on the texts of contemporary poets and contemporary translation. We will learn about the cultural construction of poetic聽forms, from encoded oral tradition to poems of survivance and resistance. Students will be expected to write 8-12 new poems over the course of the semester.
Inside Matters:聽Writing Home and Relation
In this course, we will consider the representational powers and complexity of familial relations and domestic spaces, community and filial roles, queer and alternative family structures including chosen family, and the inhabitation and reclamation of public and private lives in the context of contemporary lyric poetry. Students will be expected to write 10-16 new poems over the course of the semester.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 321 - Special Topics Studio
Advanced Fiction
In this course, we will revel in fiction's powers to enchant and delight. We will bask in the performance of language and explore what Jean-Paul Sartre meant when he said, "Every sentence is a risk." We will attempt to understand this enchantment and how such knowledge can help us craft good stories. To aid us in this quest, we will analyze the works of writers such as Ling Ma, Morgan Parker, Arinze Ifeakandu, Zeyn Joukhadar, Octavia Butler, Morgan Talty, and Ted Chiang. Students will submit their own creative work for discussion and analysis, as well as expand their craft toolbox through in-class exercises. Come prepared to be careful readers and curious writers.
Dancing in the Mud: Ecological Play and the Playful Imagination
This creative writing workshop embraces the role of the amateur. What does it mean to be an amateur - from the French amateur and the Latin amator which means "lover"; from the Latin amare, "to love." What does it mean to be lovers of the world, of life, of one another? We shall bask in the pleasure of being amateur scientists, amateur artists, and amateur researchers. We shall use this intense love affair with the world around us to fuel our creative writing. This course seeks to engage all the senses as well as harness the power of poetic imagination and scientific inclination - in all their diverse histories and cultures - and use them power our writing. What does it mean, to quote writer and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, to learn how to speak the language of a place? We shall harness the practice of serious play and playful seriousness; the amateur's delight for intricate mazes, dead ends, unforeseen detours, and transcendental experiences. How do we embrace the natural human impulse to learn and borrow from one another in ethical and purposeful ways - in ways that honor what Kimmerer calls "the gift economy"? Weekly workshops will include experimenting with eclectic research and creative processes such as sketching of the non-human world, tinkering in the archives, experimenting with various knowledge systems, and playing with narrative and poetic forms. How might these eclectic forays enrich our creative writing? How might we harness them to sharpen our prose and innovate metaphor? We shall workshop works-in-progress and provide rigorous feedback on our creative process. Readings will include works from eclectic writers who have engaged robustly with our human and non-human worlds, including Richard Powers, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Rajiv Mohabir, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ted Chiang, Sabrina Imbler, Rachel Carson and Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, among others. Classes may include visits to places of ecological interest such as the 黑料正能量张津瑜 Research Reactor and the 黑料正能量张津瑜 Canyon, among others.
Mastering Point-of-View
In this workshop, we shall explore the complexities of point of view. We seek to answer the questions,聽Who speaks? To Whom? In What Form? At What Distance?聽We seek to explore all that point-of-view has to offer, from classic omniscience to first person point-of-view to works that explore the world from the point-of-view of objects, animals, and other non-human entities. In this way, we seek to master this tricky yet most fundamental of fiction elements. We shall read eclectic works by writers such as Ceridwen Dovey, George Saunders, Alexia Arthurs, Morgan Thomas, Jamil Jan Kochai and Lesley Nneka Arimah, among others. Students will submit their own creative work for discussion and analysis, as well as expand their craft toolbox through in-class exercises. Come prepared to be careful readers and curious writers.
Narrative Forms
This workshop shall look at three interrelated narrative forms-fiction, autofiction, and memoir-and the ways in which they employ story telling strategies for varied effect. How do writers draw from their lives in fiction? How do they employ fictional strategies in autobiographical writing to produce autofiction? What do narrative strategies such as vivid scenes and story arcs do for memoir? Is it true what E. L. Doctorow said, that there is no fiction or non-fiction as we commonly understand it, only narrative? We shall read eclectic works from writers such as Mary Karr,聽Billy-Ray Belcourt, Isle McElory, Claudia Rankine,聽Simukai Chigudu, and Raquel Willis, among others.聽Drawing from these writers and their works for inspiration, we shall experiment with these narrative forms and explore their capacity to illuminate the real or fictive self. Assignments will include weekly reading of published works, writing for workshop, in-class exercises, and a portfolio of creative work.
The Realistic and the Fantastic
This workshop is designed for students with considerable experience in writing short fiction. Readings and discussion will focus on storytelling that relies upon a "realistic" depiction of our world, combined with narratives that contain events and situations that are exaggerated, surreal, speculative, and/or out of the "ordinary." How are such stories similar, and how are they different? Students will read published stories by writers such as Munro, Gaitskill, Hemingway, Cheever, Dybek, McPherson, Poe, Bradbury, Borges, Cort谩zar, Henry James, Octavia Butler, Kelly Link, Shirley Jackson, Haruki Murakami, and Angela Carter, as well as fairy tales, folktales, and other texts. Special emphasis will be given to individual voices, critically responding to others' work, and the revision of one's own stories. Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and work in progress.
Short Prose Forms
This workshop is designed for students with considerable experience in writing short prose. Students will read stories and essays by authors such as Ross Gay, Lydia Davis, Yasunari Kawabata, Hanif Abdurraquib, and Sandra Cisneros in order to learn how to manage effects economically, and to write with maximum efficiency and suggestion. Students will write one short piece of prose per week; critically responding to others' work, and the revision of one's own stories, will also be emphasized. Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and work in progress.
Short Story Laboratory
This workshop is designed for students with considerable experience in writing short prose. We will read stories and essays by authors such as Paul Yoon, Anton Chekhov, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ling Ma, Steven Millhauser, and Octavia Butler. Students will write fiction of various shapes and sizes; critically responding to others' work, and the revision of one's own stories, will also be emphasized (and various strategies employed). Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and work in progress, along with exercises and collaborative discussions of how to proceed-as the semester progresses, the shape of the course and its contents will be devised with attention to what our previous explorations have suggested, and what questions become most acute.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 331 - Special Topics Studio
Advanced Poetry Workshop
The focus of this advanced workshop is to provide an intensive critical forum for students with previous poetry workshop experience to engage deeply with the practice of reading and writing poems. We will work diligently to further the development of each poem/poet, exploring various strategies to generate and extend new work, and giving close consideration to the different formal elements.聽
Ekphrasis, Allusion, and Literary Citizenship
In this course, we will study poems in the context of poetic tradition and innovation, and consider questions of looking to the literary/visual/multimodal聽art of others in the context of intent, inspiration and interpretation of literary culture in the context of English-language, multi-lingual, and translated poems across time, with particular emphasis on the texts of contemporary poets and contemporary translation. We will learn about the cultural construction of poetic聽forms, from encoded oral tradition to poems of survivance and resistance. Students will be expected to write and revise a portfolio of 8-12 pages of a poem or poems over the course of the semester.聽
Intermediate Poetry Workshop
The focus of this intermediate workshop is to provide an intensive critical forum for students with previous poetry workshop experience to engage deeply with the practice of reading and writing poems. We will work diligently to further the development of each poem/poet, exploring various strategies to generate and extend new work, and giving close consideration to the different formal elements.聽
Serial & Long Poems
In this course, we will look closely and learn about sequential or serial poems and long poems in contemporary poetry and poetry of the recent contemporary era. We will study revision, develop compositional and generative strategies for allowing poems to be themselves on the page, and experiment with revision and kaleidoscopic poems. Students will be expected to write 8-12 new poems over the course of the semester and radically revise 4-5 poems.
More-than-Human: Poetic Structures and the Lyric
In this course, we will study and observe the ways in which more-than-human subjects (plants, ecosystems, geographies icy/watery/archipelagic and otherwise, animals, and other nonhuman phenomena) inform and emplace poetry. We will read contemporary English-language and other global poetries in translation alongside multimedia poetic forms. Students will be expected to write 8-12 new poems over the course of the semester and radically revise 4-5 poems.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 481 - Independent Study
Independent writing projects.