Creative Writing Courses

Creative Writing

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Spring 2018

C01 · Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 am - 12:20 pm

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke · Boris Fishman · Daniel Heyman · Jane Cox · Ruth Ochs · Susan Wheeler

How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

Literary Translation

CWR 206 / TRA 206 / COM 215 · Spring 2018

C01 · Wednesdays, 2:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Jhumpa Lahiri

Practice in the translation of literary works from another language into English supplemented by the reading and analysis of standard works.

How to Write a Song

CWR 211 / MUS 212 · Spring 2018

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Paul Muldoon · Steve Mackey

An introduction to the art of writing words for music, an art at the core of almost every literary tradition from Homer through Beowulf to W.B Yeats and beyond.

Graphic Design: Typography

VIS 215 / CWR 215 · Spring 2018

U01 - David Reinfurt · Mondays 1:30 - 4:20 pm and 7:30 - 9:40 pm

Instructors: David Reinfurt

This studio course introduces students to graphic design with a particular emphasis on typography. Students learn typographic history through lectures that highlight major shifts in print technologies and through their engagement in studio design projects.

360 Degrees With 7 Storytellers

VIS 223 / CWR 223 · Spring 2018

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Afia Serena Nathaniel

Through a series of screenings, we will analyze the narrative structure and grammar of films' visuals to spur on an in-depth understanding of story, character, style and theme.

Creative Non-fiction

JRN 240 / CWR 240 · Spring 2018

S01 · Mondays, 1:30 to 4:20 pm

Instructors: Staff

This is a course in factual writing and what has become known as literary non-fiction, emphasizing writing and including several reading assignments from the work of John McPhee and others. Enrollment is limited to 16 second-year students, by application only.

Advanced Poetry

CWR 302 · Spring 2018

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Mark Doty · Paul Muldoon

Advanced practice in the original composition of poetry for discussion in regularly scheduled workshop meetings.

Autobiography: Writing Our Selves

CWR 308 · Spring 2018

C01 · Fridays, 9:00 - 10:50 am

Instructors: Yiyun Li

What compels us to write about ourselves? And what drives us to read about the lives of others? In this workshop we will examine different approaches to writing about the people, places and events that have made us who and how we are.

The Anthropology/Creative Writing of Awe and Terror

ANT 313 / CWR 213 · Spring 2018

S01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Nomi Stone

This course explores encounters with awe and terror via the "sublime" experience. How are these inner states generated and represented in a variety of cultural, political, emotive and artistic contexts?

Life is Short, Art is Really Short

CWR 315 · Spring 2018

C01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: James Richardson

All literature is short — compared to our lives, anyway — but we'll be concentrating on poetry and prose at their very shortest. The reading will include proverbs, aphorisms, greguerias, one-line poems, riddles, jokes, fragments, haiku, epigrams and microlyrics.

Special Topics in Poetry: Race, Identity and Innovation

CWR 316 / ASA 316 / AAS 336 / LAO 316 · Spring 2018

C01 - Monica Youn · Wednesdays, 1:30-4:20 pm

Instructors: Monica Youn

This course explores works in which poets of color have treated racial identity as a means to destabilize literary ideals of beauty, mastery and the autonomy of the poetic text while at the same time engaging in groundbreaking poetic practices that subvert externally or internally constructed conceptions of identity or authenticity.

Introduction to Screenwriting: Writing for a Global Audience

CWR 349 / VIS 349 · Spring 2018

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 3:50 pm

Instructors: Christina Lazaridi

How can screenwriters prepare for the evolving challenges of our global media world? What types of content, as well as form, will emerging technologies make possible? This class will use fairytales, films, games and new media to illustrate universal script principles while creating a rich interdisciplinary lens to explore the innovative intersection of narrative screenwriting, science and technology.

The Art of the Essay

FRE 385 / CWR 385 · Spring 2018

C01 · Mondays & Wednesdays 8:30 - 9:50 am

Instructors: Christy Wampole

In this course, which is both a creative writing course and a literature course, students will study canonical French-language essays and newer forms of essayistic production (the essay film, photo essay, blog, and podcast) and will use these texts as models for their own writing.