Department of English

Surrealism in the Americas is a workshop focused around the reading, writing and production of surrealist manifestos, plays, performances, poems and fiction. Taking the stance that surrealist literary production is at its base a left aesthetic engagement with form and politics, the course will survey North American, South American, and Caribbean engagements with what is largely misunderstood as a European aesthetic and movement. The works of Aime Cesaire, Adrienne Kennedy, Leonora Carrington, Martin Ramirez, and Grupo Etcetera, among many others, will be studied and used as models for students' own writing and performance. Work will be both individually and collectively generated and the opportunity to work on public performances of surrealist plays will be part of the workshop.