WRITING NEW YORK CITY

In this course, we’ll take literary and literal tours of New York City as readers and writers. We will consider New York City as both the subject of a variety of literatures and as a style of writing. How have poets, fiction writers, essayists, playwrights, and journalists documented and imagined the city in the 20th and 21st centuries? What literary movements and communities were born or reimagined here? What larger ideas about urban life or American culture have been established or challenged by New York City literature? We will read and write works across genres and across the city in an effort to engage deeply and creatively with some of the varied histories and practices of writing (in and about) New York City.