Matthew Goulish

To understand the human, study the monster. To understand the living, study the ghost. This class examines monsters as warnings or omens regarding the future, and ghosts as repetitions of past events. Through various approaches to creative writing, we examine categories of monster, including the living animated from the non-living (the Golem of Prague), creatures that combine parts of recognizable animals (the Minotaur), and differing conceptions of time that ghosts manifest. We draw non-human case studies from Greek mythology, Gothic literature, and contemporary neurological and cybernetic anxieties. Readings may include Ovid?s Metamorphosis, Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, The Beggarwoman of Locarno by Heinrich von Kleist, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Turn of the Screw and The Jolly Corner by Henry James, A Werewolf Problem in Central Europe by Victor Pelevin, and A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf. Students present their own writing in the form of creative responses to the lectures and the course readings.

This course examines writing formulated and structured according to systems of thought and expression. The nine trans-disciplinary system types presented in the class derive from various modes and technologies of language and presentation: abecedarium, collection, calendar, dialectic, experiment, lipogram, palimpsest, substitution, transposition.

Case studies of system-based writing include works by Richard Powers, Andrea Rexilius, Gertrude Stein, Cesar Vallejo (tr. Joseph Mulligan), Renee Gladman, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko (tr. Ana Lucic and Shushan Avagyan), and Jay Wright. Further references include Jen Bervin, Ann Hamilton, Viktor Shklovsky, and Kenzaburo Oe.

Each student will make two presentations during the semester: a primary presentation of work; a response (the following week) to the primary presentation of another; or a response to one of the readings. All presentations last a maximum 15 minutes, happen in the room, and involve language and the systems discourse in some way. Students also participate in three in-class writing sessions through the semester.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.