101 - 110 of 388 results for: ENGLISH

Shakespeare's plays dramatize, on the one hand, the rise and fall of empire (Titus Andronicus, Antony and Cleopatra), assassination of a dictator (Julius Caesar), succession crises (Lear, Cymbeline), and political domination (The Tempest). On the other, these plays stage the significance of a different kind of politics: race, gender, sex, and sexuality. How does this latter category inform the operations of the former? In this seminar we examine the space of the political in Shakespeare's period and our own.

The elements of fiction writing: narration, description, and dialogue. Students write complete stories and participate in story workshops.

This course introduces students to creative writing through the lens of Asian American fiction. We'll read and discuss work by a range of Asian American authors, paying close attention to voice, form, and the intersections of personal and cultural histories. Students will write original fiction inspired by our readings, participate in workshops, and develop shared language for giving and receiving feedback. Through creative risk-taking we will explore what it means to write from, into, and beyond identity. No prior workshop experience is required, only a willingness to read closely, write bravely, and engage thoughtfully with one another's work.

In 1954, French-American historian and educator Jacques Barzun observed that "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball." In this creative writing course, we'll examine the role of baseball (whether minuscule or major) in our lives and American culture and history at large by engaging with notable baseball films (The Natural, Field of Dreams, The Sandlot, and Moneyball), baseball literature, and critical essays. Why have scholars suggested "that baseball may be perceived as a sort of mirror in which values, power, politics, fashion, class, economics, and race be viewed in microcosm," as Ronald Briley writes in "Baseball and American Cultural Values"? How has baseball become intertwined with American identity? What is it about the sport that immediately evokes nostalgia on a national level? What do baseball legends have in common with canonical literary heroes? Through our process of discovery, we'll "pitch" baseball as an objective correlative and use it to power our own fiction. In this workshop designed for both rookie and pro writers, the goals and objectives are: to become acquainted with a brief overview of baseball's history and rules in the nineteenth century and beyond; to learn and experiment with the craft elements of fiction: character, POV, plot, and place; to improve upon incorporating research, analysis, and American popular culture into creative work; to deliver and receive collegial feedback about creative work within a supportive community; to hit a baseball (seriously!) and attend a San Francisco Giants game. Baseball, like creative writing, is an art form that takes practice, and every baseball player is part of a team. In the same way, no writer becomes great alone.

Open to DCI Fellows and Partners only. In this seminar we will study and practice the many ways that creative writers frame, and even critique, an interest in athleticism, beauty, spectatorship, and achievement. We will look at and beyond the tropes and clichés of sports writing. Why do we write about sports? How do we write well about them? In what ways do our sports, competitions, and leisure activities reflect personal and collective beliefs about wellness, nature, the individual, and the society? To what end are those reflections cultivated and sustained? From regional fandom to the single adventurer, boxing and baseball to volleyball and table tennis, creative writers continue to mine a rich vein of 'sports writing'. In doing so, they demonstrate the creative and formal adaptability required to write with excellence about any subject matter, and under the circumstances of any subjectivity. Throughout the quarter, we will read a wide range of creative writing about sports by popular writers, literary authors, athletes, and journalists. We will discuss essays, book excerpts, testimonials, stories, and pieces of journalism. You will write and bring to workshop short and long pieces, and receive peer and instructor feedback. A variety of creative prompts and critical exercises will foster your understanding and appreciation of literature, as well as your growth as a creative writer. Please note: this is a 3-credit seminar course. You should expect to do less work than in the 5-credit memoir workshop.

Novels only get one chance to make a good first impression. Chapter One is that opportunity, and in this course we'll read, discuss, and analyze a variety of historical and contemporary novels with a particular focus on their opening chapter (and sometimes prologue). We'll study strategies around world-building, characterization, creating the engine of a novel (its voice), and in establishing a lively, complex, and surprising world that a reader can't wait to explore in greater detail.

What makes writing funny? What are we doing when we try to be funny? In this creative writing workshop, you'll exercise your native wit by writing short pieces of humor in a variety of forms. We'll practice writing jokes, parody, satire, sketches, stories, and more, study theories of humor, research practical principles and structures that writers have repeatedly used to make things funny, and enjoy and analyze examples of humor old and new to use as models. In the service of creating and understanding humor, we'll also explore questions about what purposes humor serves, and what relationship humor has with power, culture, and history.

This is a course on the craft of fiction writing. We will read published literary short stories by contemporary Latine writers writing in the United States and begin to explore the vast range of fictional techniques employed by these writers. In discussing these published works, we will analyze how the formal elements of story - structure, plot, character, point of view, etc. - function in these pieces, so that students can apply these principles of craft to their own work. Students will write two complete short stories, which will be discussed in a traditional workshop format.

Like other 90 and 91-level courses, 90M will explore basic elements of fiction and nonfiction writing. Students will read a wide variety of stories and essays in order to develop a language for working through the themes, forms, and concerns of the queer prose canon. Students will complete and workshop a piece of writing that in some way draws upon the aesthetics or sensibilities of the work we have read, culled from exercises completed throughout the quarter. This final piece may be a short story, a personal essay, a chapter from a novel or memoir, or a piece that, in the spirit of queerness, blurs or interrogates standard demarcations of genre. The course is open to any and all students, regardless of how they define their gender or sexuality. NOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.