The goal of this course is to attempt to answer certain questions raised by the African-American presence in American life through its literature by addressing issues of identity and ethnicity; in other words, looking at the implications of what it means to be “African American” as explored through literature, tied to the larger construct of the relationship between race and art. How does the African-American or Black artist negotiate what Du Bois again concluded to be the “strangeness of being black in America?” At the end of this semester we may come to some understanding of the aesthetic as well as historical, and even political dimensions of African-American literature by examining how African American writers have used different artistic and narrative techniques to raise questions, explore, and even expand the relationship between history and art.

This course will introduce students to an intensive writing and workshop class that will hopefully challenge their assumptions and their practices of this genre of creative nonfiction. It will focus on the different forms of the essay, examine the various category of works from across the genre, the broad and inclusive character of the genre; and questions of craft and technique. We will explore how more established writers of Creative Nonfiction have used language to stir or move us with their figurative use of language. In our own writing exercises, students will be encouraged to experiment with form; take risks with language and with subject, and challenge the limits of the form where possible and necessary. We will focus particularly on the variegated and multivalent nature of content—travel writing, science writing, sports, the place of self and memory, unique and significant encounters, etc.—that have given form and meaning to this evolving mode of Creative Writing. We will examine the boundaries of biography and autobiography; the uses and limits of the imagination in Creative Nonfiction; the texture of critical and literary journalism, and the differences between literalness and literariness in Creative Nonfiction. How does language, for instance, reveal subtler truths in Creative Non Fiction? How do images work in Creative Nonfiction? How, in short, does Creative Nonfiction, utilize the creative elements of the other modes in the genre to build itself. In other words, we will read both for content as well as to discover and understand the figurative uses of language; character development; setting, tension, pace, and the use of dialogue in nonfiction. I will encourage students to pay special attention to these because they will be important principles and mastery of them will be key in the process and evolution of our writing in this class. Writing and workshopping in this course will, needless to say, be intensive, the horizon, broad. Students will be required to read very closely and respond thoughtfully to each other’s nonfiction projects during workshops.

This course will introduce students to an intensive writing and workshop class that will hopefully challenge their assumptions and their practices of this genre of creative nonfiction. It will focus on the different forms of the essay, examine the various category of works from across the genre, the broad and inclusive character of the genre; and questions of craft and technique. We will explore how more established writers of Creative Nonfiction have used language to stir or move us with their figurative use of language. In our own writing exercises, students will be encouraged to experiment with form; take risks with language and with subject, and challenge the limits of the form where possible and necessary. We will focus particularly on the variegated and multivalent nature of content—travel writing, science writing, sports, the place of self and memory, unique and significant encounters, etc.—that have given form and meaning to this evolving mode of Creative Writing. We will examine the boundaries of biography and autobiography; the uses and limits of the imagination in Creative Nonfiction; the texture of critical and literary journalism, and the differences between literalness and literariness in Creative Nonfiction. How does language, for instance, reveal subtler truths in Creative Non Fiction? How do images work in Creative Nonfiction? How, in short, does Creative Nonfiction, utilize the creative elements of the other modes in the genre to build itself. In other words, we will read both for content as well as to discover and understand the figurative uses of language; character development; setting, tension, pace, and the use of dialogue in nonfiction. I will encourage students to pay special attention to these because they will be important principles and mastery of them will be key in the process and evolution of our writing in this class. Writing and workshopping in this course will, needless to say, be intensive, the horizon, broad. Students will be required to read very closely and respond thoughtfully to each other’s nonfiction projects during workshops.