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Creative Writing

ENGL 010.920
instructor(s):
MW 1:15-5:05 pm

We often think of creative writing as that genre of writing which aims
to capture and explain the "voice" of the author through the
expression of one's innermost feelings. This course works to first
explain, and then reverse that model: we will learn how and why one
might choose to write creatively from the outside in. We will read the
work of modern and contemporary writers who write poetry out of
materials and compositional methods that exist outside of the self
(including mathematical equations, court testimony, movies, newspaper
articles, and Google searches). Students will explore individual and
group writing experiments that employ collage techniques, methods of
random generation, and new media technologies as a part of our active
investigation of how poets and memoirists discovering and enacting new
relationships between writing and self-expression. These alternative
ways of thinking about language, subject matter and process will help
us situate our writing acts in relation to our selves as we call
attention to, and challenge, the continued consignment of one voice to
one author and of individualized, "unique" writing practices.
 

fulfills requirements
Elective of the Standard Major