The archive–and using archival materials as the generative basis for creative output–is having a moment. The visionary scholar-writer Saidiya Hartman has popularized once unknown terms like “critical fabulation” and “documentary poetics” through genre bending works like “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments”; erasure projects like poet Nicole Sealey’s “The Ferguson Report: an Erasure” are transforming leaky government records into poetry; the influence of the late German wanderer W.G. Sebald has proven to remarkably durable in contemporary writing of all kinds. In this class, we’ll read a wide range of creative non-fiction that involves archival work, and students will undertake their own adventures in the archive to help them generate personal essays, hybrid works, and other forms of creative nonfiction, which they’ll refine in regular workshops.
Learning Outcomes:
-To gain a familiarity with a wide range of literary texts from different countries, time periods, and traditions;
-To interpret these texts using a range of critical tools;
-To communicate ideas clearly in both discussion and in writing;
-To collaborate with peers on goal-oriented projects.
Delivery Method: Fully in-person
Prerequisites:
Interested students should submit either a critical or creative writing sample (5 pp.) via this form by XXXX. Admitted students will be notified by email on XXXX. All students may apply for multiple 4000-level Reading and Writing Courses in the same term, but, once accepted, may only enroll in one 4000-level Reading and Writing course per term.
Corequisites: Students are required to attend all Literature Evenings and Poetry at Bennington events this term, commonly held at 7pm on most Wednesday evenings.
Course Level: 4000-level
Credits: 4
Tu 2:10PM - 5:50PM (Full-term)
Maximum Enrollment: 15
Course Frequency: One time only
Categories: 4000 , All courses , Cancelled Courses , Four Credit , Fully In-Person , Updates
Tags: archives , creative writing , research , workshop