Offered as ENG 135wp and WRT 135wp. In the 20th century, as literacy rates rose, images disappeared from literature. Pictures were relegated to children’s books; only words were fit for adults. But the situation is changing. The internet and new printing technologies have allowed serious stories to again be told with words and images. This course examines creative nonfiction in graphic novels, hybrid and artist’s books, art labels, zines, digital platforms and more. Students need not be an artist to take this class!

Michael Pollan writes in Omnivore’s Dilemma that the U.S. suffers from a “national eating disorder”—that essentially, Americans don’t know what to eat. This course examines that confusion, considering which of the many diets available to us—vegan, slow food, locavore—is truly healthy; what roles ethnicity, gender, and class play in food choices; and how pervasive hunger is in the United States. Students read from the spectrum of food writing and hone their own writing in a variety of genres ranging from academic essays to restaurant reviews. Enrollment limited to 15.

This class explores the contemporary “remix culture” to ask pressing questions about creativity, originality and identity. Students explore the remix as a necessary tool for cultural transformation and look at their own experience of race, gender, sexual orientation, class and ability as an opportunity to reimagine and transform old ideas. Students make a case for the remix as a place for critical updates to the culture and discuss the possibilities of how remixing contributes to a richer production of cultural ideas.

As instruments of white supremacy, police and prisons disproportionately target Black and Brown people. The abolition movement, which gained more mainstream support after the 2020 George Floyd protests, demands to defund and ultimately abolish prisons and police, instead investing in communities to eliminate the conditions that lead to violence. But abolition is primarily about building, not just dismantling. It offers a vision of a liberated world in which everyone can thrive and justice does not equal punishment.

In a series of seven lectures, writers-creative nonfiction authors, playwrights, novelists, screenwriters, documentarians and short story writers-provide an overview of the practice of creating narratives from specific disciplinary perspectives. Editors, publishers, agents and producers reflect on the publication and production process. Speakers discuss researching, revising, publishing and producing texts and read from their work to provide examples. They also explore questions of style, voice and genre. S/U only.

Offered as WLT 330 and TSX 330. The capstone seminar brings together a cohort of concentrators to discuss a final translation project that each student undertakes with the guidance of their adviser in the concentration and to situate the project within the framework of larger questions that the work of translation elicits. The readings focus on renowned practitioners’ reflections on the challenges, beauties and discoveries of translating.

This course delves deep into J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middleearth, focusing on The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) and its prelude, The Hobbit (1937). The course looks back to Tolkien’s inspiration from medieval literature and traditional lore, and forward to the manifold adaptations of his works in diverse media.

Offered as RES 273 and WLT 273. How did the "final frontier" of space become a "front" in the Cold War? As the US and USSR competed in the Space Race, science fiction reflected political discourses in literature, film, visual art and popular culture. This course explores Russian and Western science fiction in the contexts of twentieth-century geopolitics and artistic modernism (and postmodernism), examining works by Bogdanov, Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Butler, Haraway, Pelevin and others.