CRWR

Secret knowledge, withheld or discovered, has explosive power in literature. Deft management and containment of secrets has dramaturgical consequences for a story’s architecture. This course will examine narratives that skillfully deploy the strategies listed by Roland Barthes in his description of the hermeneutic code: snares, equivocations, partial answers, suspended answers, and jammings. 

In the course of our close study of these strategies, we will also investigate their generative potential. We will read stories and excerpts from writers such as Miranda July, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ken Liu, and Tom McCarthy.

What does plot need to sustain itself, to make itself, as Aristotle wrote, “a whole action”? For John Barth, a story’s middle “performs its double and contradictory functions of simultaneously fetching us to the climax and delaying our approach thereto.” 

This workshop will explore the successive complications of conflict (its incremental perturbations, in Barth’s words). It will examine how writers arrive at or invent or otherwise architect their ‘middles.’ Our investigative focus will be on how accretion and cumulation are created through sequence. We will read stories and excerpts from writers such as Alice Walker, Roald Dahl, John Le Carré and Jorge Luis Borges.

Beginning Poetry Workshop: Imaginary Music

The poet Aimé Césaire suggests that “The only acceptable music comes from somewhere deeper than sound. The search for music is a crime against the music of poetry which can only be the beating of the mind’s wave against the rock of the world.” What is this music “deeper than sound”? How is it related to the more obvious “audible” sounds of poetry? This course guides students in exercises that work with both the actual sounds of poetry, like alliteration and rhythm, and the inaudible, “imagined” music of the mind, to write and workshop poems. We read diverse contemporary and classic poets, write several poems, and workshop peer work weekly, culminating in a portfolio of new poems as a final project.

The past few years have seen a proliferation of major awards for works of contemporary world literature that have been translated into English (among them the International Booker Prize, the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and the National Book Critics Circle Book in Translation Prize). While such awards certainly elevate translation as a mode of writing comparable to that of other literary arts, they also raise important questions about the production, circulation, and reception of translated literature in the Anglosphere. In this course, we will read a number of recent award-winning books in English translation (both poetry and prose), considering how these books traveled from origin to translation, and how we as readers engage with them – as translations and as literary texts. How are translations made? How do we evaluate books that have two writers: author and translator? What larger forces (social, aesthetic, commercial, political) are at work when deciding which translated books will hold value for Anglophone readers? We’ll explore these questions through weekly readings and discussions, student presentations, critical analyses and creative responses. As a final project, students will develop their own evaluative rubrics from which to award a prize to one of the translations we’ve read.

Ever since humans started drawing on cave walls, the ways in which we communicate meaning through stories has been evolving. This class will look at various forms of narrative—fiction, creative non-fiction, narrative poetry, and film—and explore the “grammar” of these different genres, what they share and where they differ and how their particular strengths and failings influence the ways in which they most effectively communicate. How does film (a visual medium that offers a voyeuristic experience) tell a story differently than does fiction (which invites the reader to participate more in an act of shared imagination), differently than creative non-fiction, (which must always adhere to facts), differently than poetry (which condenses a story to its essences)? How is meaning conveyed differently through each? How do these different grammars influence the stories they tell and the effects they achieve? Students will view read various works of fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, view films, and read critical and craft-oriented texts and complete weekly reading responses, as well as creative exercises. A paper focusing on a specific element from the class will be due at the end of the course.  

The concept of “voice” comes up often in writing. How does a narrator’s personality, their way of seeing the world, imbue the writing in an unforgettable way? How we are drawn in, charmed, confounded, and driven to epiphany? In this course, we will consider this nebulous yet essential aspect of writing by examining our own original stories in workshop and by reading published works from Grace Paley, Bette Howland, Lucia Berlin, Kathleen Collins, and others. Ideally, you will develop and embrace your own authorial voice over the course of the quarter.

Ancient Mesopotamian flood narratives, Cold War nuclear Armageddon, existential climate catastrophe: as long as literature has existed, we have used it to speculate on our own demise. In this Intro to Genres course, we will explore apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic writing, how it intersects with other genres, how it has fluctuated or remained stable as a genre over time, and how it reveals our changing cultural anxieties about what threatens us as a species. We will read broadly across poetry, fiction, nonfiction and film, exploring the various flavors of apocalyptic writing, from scientific excess to natural disasters, and examining the role style and tone play in creating meaning around devastation. Representative authors will include T.S. Elliott, Rachel Carson, Elissa Washuta, Carmen Maria Machado, Ursula K. Leguin, and Chris Marker. Students will be asked to write and workshop their own creative writing in a chosen genre and produce a critical essay that focuses on one thematic element of the class.

Choices about form and shape are not unique to nonfiction writing, but nonfiction presents unique challenges. Unlike fiction we cannot simply invent information or insert details in order to maintain traditional narrative forms. Instead, we are tasked with finding or creating forms that meets the needs of our content. In this beginning workshop we will explore a range of possible forms that fit the needs of various genres of nonfiction. From traditional narrative nonfiction and memoir that follow the kinds of story arcs or hero's journeys familiar to fiction and theatre on the one hand, to more associative and fractured structures that make space for uncertainty and missing information on the other, we will explore the role form plays in shaping the content of nonfiction. We will read more traditional essays from classic and contemporary writers like James Baldwin, Joan Didion, John Jeremiah Sullivan and Hanif Abdduraquib and compare these works to formally experimental work from writers such as Renee Gladman, Aisha Sbatini Sloan, Eula Biss, and Maggie Nelson. Students will be asked to produce their own work that explores the potentials and limitations of both traditional and experimental forms, engage in respectful and constructive workshop, and reflect on the role of form as it relates to the works we have read in one critical essay.

Love it or hate it, research is an essential part of nonfiction writing. But it’s about more than just gathering facts; diving into research means navigating the gaps, challenges, and surprises that come with combing through archives and interviewing subjects. In this course, we'll explore how research puzzles can become treasure troves of creativity and storytelling. We’ll read authors like A. Van Jordan, Stacy Schiff, and M. Nourbese Philip, who have faced these unknown realms of research head-on and emerged with powerful, compelling stories. Through lively class discussions, collective strategizing, and composing short essays, you’ll engage with difficulties like incomplete archives or unreliable sources and learn how to turn them into compelling narratives. Throughout the term, you will pursue a single multi-faceted research question that you propose in the first few weeks. To this end, you’ll also keep a research journal, tracking your discoveries, challenges, and new questions that arise as you dig deeper into your chosen topic. In addition, we’ll work together to create our own class archive, where you’ll explore primary sources and unearth hidden gems from your research adventures. By the end of the course, you’ll not only have completed a research-driven creative project but will have navigated the wilds of research, transforming every research challenge into a creative adventure.

What makes a portrait come to life? Whether through a camera’s lens or the written word, portraits expose truths, reveal choices, and capture the complexity of a person or moment. In this course, we’ll explore how the creative process of nonfiction writing parallels photography, using the tools of framing, perspective, and composition to capture the essence of a subject. We’ll dive into this intersection between writing and visual art through activities like ekphrastic writing prompts and a field trip to the Smart Museum of Art, discovering along the way how these experiences can inform our writing and deepen our understanding of truth and representation. We’ll study photographs by Ansel Adams and Lewis Hine, read Maggie Nelson, and analyze films like I, Tonya to explore how to tell stories with multiple truths. The first half of the term will focus on testing and broadening your skills with photography-inspired assignments. By midterm, you’ll pitch your own written portrait of a local Chicago resident using the techniques we’ve studied. The second half will be dedicated to workshopping these portraits, allowing for collaboration and feedback to refine your work. By the end of the course, you’ll submit a final portfolio that includes a fully realized written portrait and that reflects the evolution of your creative voice, showcasing your ability to authentically capture the complexity and humanity of real individuals.