English 141

Book List

Lopate, Philip : The Art of the Personal Essay; Mullen, Harryette: Sleeping With the Dictionary; Rios, Joseph: Shadowboxing

Other Readings and Media

Texts will include chunky course readers—available from ZZ Copies—concerning poetry and fiction.

Description

We'll study some of the ways that fiction writers, essayists, story-tellers, and poets have responded to the worlds that their cultures have built.  We'll read published work by our predecessors and by contemporary writers (including Maxine Hong Kingston, Angela Carter, and William Kennedy); we'll look at "high" forms and "low" forms and write in both and consider the distinctions.  We'll read and think about and write urban legends and short fictions, family histories, hybrid texts, ghost stories, and sonnets.  Students will work on individual projects and will also be asked to collaborate on group performances of creative work.  Projects incorporating material from non-written sources (graphic art, for example) will be encouraged;' projects incorporating material from unpublished sources (folklore, family stories, etc.) will also be encouraged.

Discussion, workshopping, writing prompts.