Department of English

Documentary has been described as “a creative treatment of actuality”: writers and artists use documentary methods to turn newspaper reports, legal cases, government documents, human rights testimony, maps, signs, comics, interviews, letters, and ephemera into innovative new forms. In this creative workshop, we’ll discover how documentary forms question truth, appearance, and knowledge—and we will make our own forms to confront the limits of point of view, witnessing, and ideology. Students are welcome in this course no matter what genre of writing or art you are interested in making. Documentary Forms is open to beginners and more experienced practitioners who have an interest in using their writing and artmaking to engage with history and/or the present.

This course fulfills the Cultural Diversity in the U.S. Requirement, and is also featured in the SAS Commons cluster of courses that align with the Democracy and Knowledge theme.