English 360 - Memoir Writing

How does one write a life, especially if it’s one’s own? This writing workshop addresses the profound complexities, challenges and pleasures of the genre of the memoir, through intensive reading, discussion, and both analytical and creative writing. Readings are drawn from a range of mostly contemporary memoirists with intersectional identity locations—and dislocations—drawing from a range of voices, experiences and representations, pursuing what the class comes to identify as the most urgent aesthetic and ethical questions. The attention is to craft, both in the memoirs read and those written. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required.