This course explores the development of Japanese and colonial identities in literature produced in and about Japan's colonies during the first half of the 20th century. We read literary works written during and about the Japanese empire by Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Okinawan and Taiwanese writers. By bringing together different voices from inside and outside of Japan's empire, students gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of colonial hegemony and identity. Taught in English: no knowledge of Chinese, Japanese or Korean required.

Students learn to use literary techniques to write factual, engaging narratives that read like fiction. Based on research, interviews and personal experience, creative nonfiction encompasses a wide range of genres, including memoir, travel writing, nature writing, science writing, food writing and biography. Prerequisites: one WI course. Enrollment in each section limited to 16. Course may be repeated once on a different topic. (E) In this course we read and write about food, the everyday miracle. You needn't be a chef or even know how to cook to appreciate food; we all eat.

This course is for last-semester Division III students whose projects are, in some way, rooted in creative writing, whatever the genre. Course participants will present and workshop their work and influences while bringing their Division III projects to a successful close. As tends to be the case with creative writing concentrators' seminars, this seminar will also be an opportunity for writers to (further) develop as a "community of writers" while reflecting on the possible meanings of the term.

How does writing the dream alter language and/or how we expect language to behave? Might the dream be a painting or a gift or a found object? How is metaphor a kind of rebellion? And how might these practices be(come) routes to possibility? In this course, we will explore these questions and the ways that dreams, metaphors, and poem-making (in general) can meaningfully challenge and stretch the conventions of our saying and seeing.

This course is designed for students in their final semester of Division II who expect to undertake a Division III in creative writing. Our weekly readings will feature works on writing by authors such as Francine Prose, Italo Calvino, bell hooks, Graham Greene, Walter Mosley, Annie Dillard, Helene Cixous, and others, as well as interviews with contemporary writers about their craft. Students will design their own independent project (for example, a series of poems, two long stories, a collection of flash fiction, comix, novel chapters, etc) and create a feasible timeline for their execution.

In this fiction workshop, we will consider contemporary short story collections as well as 'story cycles' or 'novels-in-stories.' In our readings, we will ask: what 'makes' a collection? how does one story build on the next, even when the characters and settings are different? how can telling multiple stories about one event complicate readers' understanding of the fictional world? how do authors' aesthetic and ethical concerns carry over or change across stories?