This course explores the questions at the heart of creative nonfiction: What does it mean to tell a “true” story? And what does it mean to tell a true story “creatively”? A deep dive into essay, memoir, and genres of nonfiction that have yet to be named will allow us to form our own definitions of creative nonfiction. Through workshops that will encourage exploration, experimentation, and vulnerability, we will develop our own personal practices for writing from life.

Autofiction is a term that has recently emerged in the literary landscape to describe works that blend the genres of fiction and autobiography and/or draw from the real lives of their authors. We will consider how these definitions might be limited to realistic writing that explicitly draws from an author’s life. We will interrogate the boundaries of genre, exploring the ways that autobiographical material might take a speculative approach and emotional truth can be fact. Does a narrator have to look or sound like oneself for a work to feel autobiographical?

Poetry is an act of discovery. We write to discover what we don't know or understand about ourselves and the world around us. To make these discoveries we must pay attention: practice close observation, question our assumptions, and test our truths. 

We must also pay attention to what’s happening in our bodies as we write: the breath, pulse and heartbeat that gives poetry life. When we practice embodied writing we include our whole selves in our creative work. 

(Offered as ENGL 213 and BLST 213) This course is an advanced survey of the African American literary tradition. Covering over 250 years of literary production, we will explore various trends in African American literature in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries---as well as its attendant scholarly criticism.

In this course we will explore Jewish stories across time, geography, and genre. We will consider how stories have been deployed as religious, social, and political tools in Jewish culture, and focus on the role of the storyteller in Jewish tradition—as prophet, sage, and/or outlaw. We will pay particular attention to recurring themes such as faith and loss of faith; belonging and ill-belonging; identity—both national and individual; exile and redemption; and language.

This is a course about three of the most basic and ancient genres of verbal expression. They exist in every culture and they are a part of almost every person’s life. By thinking about each of those genres, one at a time, over the course of the semester, we will ultimately arrive at a more complex, nuanced understanding of the ways in which they both express and shape who we are. The readings and listenings will be wide-ranging and will consist partly of professor-provided works and partly of student-nominated works. Musical knowledge is useful but not necessary.

(Offered as EDST 121 and ENGL 121) This Intensive Writing course functions primarily as an introduction to academic writing. It considers belonging and community in the college context, with a focus on reading and writing as part of a practice of making meaning of the college experience. Students will learn about the history of higher education as they research and reflect on the contemporary college landscape. They will analyze learning as a process: how it is understood by scholars and teachers; how it is shaped by cultural and rhetorical contexts; and how students engage with it.

(Offered as ENGL 120 and EDST 120) ​​This Intensive Writing course functions primarily as an introduction to academic writing. It also considers from many perspectives what it means to read and write and learn and teach both for ourselves and for others. As part of the work of this course, in addition to the usual class hours, students will serve as weekly tutors and classroom assistants in adult basic education centers in nearby towns.

(Offered as ENGL 117 and EUST 117) [Before 1800] Knights, monsters, quests, and true love: these are the things we associate with King Arthur and tales of his court. Why has Arthurian literature proved so enchanting to centuries of poets, novelists, and recently, filmmakers? In this introductory English course, we will read and watch Arthurian legends from Chaucer to Monty Python, examining the ways in which they have been represented in different eras. Beginning with the historical foundations of the King Arthur legend, we will examine how it blossomed and took form in later eras.

How does migration transform identity? Which techniques do writers use to express and recreate this complex experience on the page? What role can language and narrative technique play in forging a sense of self and home? How might writing be related to refuge? Reading across genres of poetry, fiction and memoir, this class explores how writers have described the experience of locating themselves while departing, arriving or living in between. The course will cover topics such as alienation, assimilation, generational memory, survival, nostalgia, hybridity, and transformation.