Visionary London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner “sees research as a spiritual and artistic endeavor,” writes Museum of Modern Art curator Michelle Kuo. This course of interdisciplinary reading and writing explores “how Black people have thought through, imagined, and articulated freedom through artistic and cultural production,” an idea central to Wales Bonner’s Artist’s Choice exhibition, Dream in the Rhythm—Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection. How is spirituality defined and activated through contemporary art and poetry?

Offered as AFR 170 and ENG 235. An introduction to the themes, issues and questions that shaped the literature of African Americans during its period of origin. Texts include poetry, prose and works of fiction. Writers include Harriet Jacobs, Frances Harper, Charles Chesnutt, Frederick Douglass and Phillis Wheatley.

Offered as JUD 230 and ENG 230. Explores the significant contributions and challenges of Jewish writers and critics to American literature, broadly defined. Discussions include the American dream and its discontents; immigrant fiction; Yiddish in America; ethnic satire and humor; crises of the left involving 60s radicalism and Black-Jewish relations; after-effects of the Holocaust; and the novel as alternate history. Must Jewish writing remain on the margins, too ethnic for the mainstream yet insufficient for contemporary gatekeepers of diversity? No prerequisites.

This course traces the emergence of a 21st-century gothic tradition in American writing through texts including novels, films, and television shows. The course analyzes the shifting definitions and cultural work of the Gothic in contemporary American literature in the context of political and cultural events and movements and their relation to such concerns as race, gender, class, sexuality, and disability.

In this course students read as writers and write as readers, analyzing the poetic devices and strategies employed in a diverse range of contemporary poetry, gaining practical use of these elements to create a portfolio of original work and developing the skills of critique and revision. In addition, students read and write on craft issues and attend Poetry Center readings and Q&A’s. May be repeated. Enrollment limited to 12. Writing sample required. Instructor permission required.

The crisis of climate change, according to many scholars, is a crisis of imagination. So how can fiction writers—as inventors of imagined worlds—be active participants in the fight for a sustainable future? In this creative writing course, students explore potential answers by learning the ins and outs of writing “Climate Fiction.” Drawing inspiration from a diverse array of contemporary authors, students practice different techniques for navigating environmental issues on the page, with short exercises building toward a longer workshopped story.

A reading of Anglo-Saxon England’s most powerful and significant poem, invoking the world of barbarian Europe after the fall of Rome.

A writer’s workshop that focuses on sharpening and expanding each student’s fiction writing skills, as well as broadening and deepening their understanding of the short and long-form work. Exercises concentrate on generative writing using a range of techniques to feed one's fictional imagination. Students analyze and discuss each other's stories, and examine the writings of established authors. May be repeated. Enrollment limited to 12. Writing sample required. Instructor permission required.