Spring 2024 Writing UN3226 section 001

NONFICTION-ISH

NF SEM - NONFICTION-ISH

Call Number 15130
Day & Time
Location
R 2:10pm-4:00pm
SAT ALFRED LERNE
Points 3
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor James C Yeh
Type SEMINAR
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description

This cross-genre craft seminar aims to uncover daring and unusual approaches to literature informed by nonfiction (and nonfiction-adjacent) practices. In this course we will closely read and analyze a diverse set of works, including Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history of women and war, Lydia Davis’s “found” microfictions, Theresa Hak Cha’s genre-exploding “auto-enthnography,” Alejandro Zambra’s unabashedly literary narratives, Sigrid Nunez’s memoir “of” Susan Sontag, Emmanuel Carrére’s “nonfiction novel,” John Keene’s bold counternarratives, W. G. Sebald’s saturnine essay-portraits, Saidiya Hartman’s melding of history and literary imagination, Annie Ernaux’s collective autobiography, Sheila Heti’s alphabetized diary, Ben Mauk’s oral history about Xinjiang detention camps, and Edward St. Aubyn’s autobiographical novel about the British aristocracy and childhood trauma, among other texts. We will also examine Sharon Mashihi’s one-woman autofiction podcasts about Iranian Jewish American family. What we learn in this course we will apply to our own work, which will consist of two creative writing responses and a creative final project. Students will also learn to keep a daily writing journal.

Web Site Vergil
Department Writing
Enrollment 19 students (20 max) as of 10:07AM Friday, December 13, 2024
Subject Writing
Number UN3226
Section 001
Division Interfaculty
Fee $15 Creative Writing C
Note REQUIRED REGISTRATION IN DISCUSSION SECTION WRIT UN3407
Section key 20241WRIT3226W001