In this class, we will read, discuss, and write into narrative shapes outside Freytag's Pyramid or the Western "hero's journey" with a particular emphasis on the works of Indigenous, historically marginalized, and queer writers. We will look to the traditions, modalities, political movements and artifacts of the natural world that continue to influence contemporary, decolonial, and cross-genre storytelling. Sample authors include: Elissa Washuta, No'u Revilla, Layli Long Soldier, Xavier Navarro Aquino, Kristiana Kahaukawila, Tommy Orange, and others.

With the onslaught of American, French, Haitian, and South American revolts and revolutions, the Atlantic world, much of Europe, and its colonial/industrial empire were thrown into a period of refiguring the concept of the raced, national, and gendered subject. This course considers what new forms of gender, sex, sexuality, and being were created, practiced, or thought, however momentarily, in this tumultuous age. Specific attention is given to conceptions of nonbinary being (of all varieties). Authors may include E. Darwin, Equiano, Wollstonecraft, Lister, M. Shelley, Byron, Jacobs.

Academic discourse (writing and speaking) is often described as impersonal and objective. Expertise, evidence, and argument are valued. Clarity and concision are expected. Individuality and creativity are rarely mentioned, but can they have a place in academic discourse? This course will explore that question while discussing the relationship between academic and public discourse, social media in academic conversations, academic ethics, and Standard English as a default language for academic communication.

This course surveys Black literary production with special attention to the idea of genre as a choice of form made by Black writers from the antebellum era through the present to communicate critique, effect political change, and render new worlds. Structured around debates about the genre status of Black writing, this course introduces students to slave era texts by Harriet E.

This course introduces students to Asian American literature, considering its historical origins and evolution. Throughout the course we explore questions of identity, immigration and citizenship, generational conflict, war and migration, and mixed and cross-racial politics. Readings of primary texts will be supplemented by historical and critical source materials. Authors may include Nina Revoyr, Ruth Ozeki, Nam Le, Chang-rae Lee, Aimee Phan, Susan Choi, and Jhumpa Lahiri.

This course will explore the Sherlock Holmes stories and their various afterlives as a case study to explore the problematics of interpretation, especially literary interpretation. Some of the questions raised will concern evidence, inductive and deductive thought, applying theoretical paradigms, historical and material contexts, character and narrative, form and genre, popular culture, ideology, and the aesthetic.

This course will investigate how gender and class serve as structuring principles in the development of the Victorian novel in Britain, paying attention to the ways in which the form also develops in relation to emerging ideas about sexuality, race, nation, and religion. Novelists include Bronte, Dickens, Eliot, and Gaskell and we will read examples of domestic fiction, detective fiction, social realist novels, and the Victorian gothic.

"Race is the modality in which class is lived," wrote the late cultural theorist Stuart Hall. This course takes Hall's axiom as a starting point for considering the racial, gendered, and sexualized character of capitalist domination. Throughout the course students will explore both the political economy and the cultural imagery of racial capitalism. One question we will grapple with is the following: if capital itself is as imperceptible and objectively real as gravity, what are the common tropes we use to apprehend its circulation?

This multi-genre creative writing course focuses on generating writing inspired by the area's art and archives. The class will visit collections including Sylvia Plath's archives at Smith, the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, and MHC's own art museum and archives. Students will learn how to work with archival materials including original manuscripts, correspondence, recordings, and photos and will create writing in any genre spurred by the art and archives they interact with.

The screenplay is a unique and ephemeral form that exists as a blueprint for something else: a finished film. How do you convey on the page a story that will take shape within an audio-visual medium? The screenwriter must have an understanding of both the language of narrative film as well as the general shape and mechanics of film stories. This advanced course will cover dialogue, characterization, plot, story arc, genre, and cinematic structure. We will analyze scenes from fictional narrative films -- both short and feature length -- and read the scripts that accompany these films.