Information for:
Spring 2010 - MFA Course Desciptions
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ENGL 506: Research for Narrative Writing (Mori)
This course is designed to teach writers how to find information and how to feed it seamlessly into a compelling nonfiction story or essay. The first part of the class will focus on research and story definition: how to find an appropriate topic, how to find information on that topic, how to keep track of the information you found, how to reshape the story now that you’ve found the information you thought you were looking for (and learned many things you hadn’t thought about), and—most importantly—how NOT to use everything you found in your research so that your writing is driven by the story you decided to tell and not by the information you found. The second part of the class will focus on your work in progress, in workshop discussions. The course is a requirement for MFA students in nonfiction; it can serve as an out-of-genre course for MFA students in fiction or poetry. It is open to MA students; some familiarity with creative writing, especially nonfiction, is expected.
ENGL 513: Birth of Consciousness in Modern Literature (Cheuse)
Modern writers portray consciousness—the state of being mentally aware, to use the dictionary definition, a state comprised of the totality of the impressions, thoughts, and feelings, which make up a person's conscious being—by employing techniques relatively new in relation to the evolution of western literature. We will identify and focus on those writers whose work revolutionized the depiction of consciousness from the mid-nineteenth century onward, from Flaubert to Joyce, Woolf, Beckett, Hemingway,
Faulkner, Golding, Garcia Marquez, Lessing, Didion, and beyond. As a way of assessing and defining technique this should prove invaluable to writers and readers alike, especially those readers interested in the role of consciousness in modern culture.
Assignments, in addition to the reading, will for MFA students consist of weekly pastiches employing the techniques under scrutiny and a final story. I will ask literature students for weekly entries in a notebook they will keep for the course in which they assess the techniques and speculate on their implications for the study of the subject.
Literature students will compose a final essay as well.
ENGL 565: Forms of Nonfiction (Mori)
- open and intended for nonMFA students in spring 2010
This course offers a survey of the various forms of nonfiction narrative, including travel writing, nature writing, memoir, profiles, reportage, commentary, and writing about food, place, and books. Through weekly reading and writing assignments and a final project that develops from one of the weekly assignments, you will read and practice a wide range of nonfiction writing. The Spring Semester section is intended for graduate students who are not in the MFA program.
ENGL 617: Poetry Writing Workshop (Pankey)
Intensive practice in craft of poetry and study of creative process. Intended for students already familiar with traditional and contemporary poetic modes and already writing original poetry. At descretion of instructor, reading may be required. May be repeated for credit with permission of department.
ENGL 618: Fiction Writing Workshop (Cheuse)
An intensive workshop course for fiction MFAs beginning new projects. Combines manuscript critique and suggested readings.
Each week will include critique, instruction in revision (in group meetings and office tutorial hours), readings.
John Gardner, The Art of Fiction
On Becoming a Novelist
ENGL 685: Three Heavyweights (Goodwin)
Readings in the work three ground-breaking writers of nonfiction: Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, and David Foster Wallace. In addition to reading their nonfiction, we'll also read some of their fiction and try to understand what talents are operative in the different genres. Students will write three different short papers (one close reading of a specific essay, one pastiche, and one review) as well as a long paper on one of the three writers.