Todd S. Hasak-Lowy

This class serves as an entry into the historical, theoretical and practical concerns of creative writing as an art form in itself and as a vital element of interdisciplinary projects. We explore the possibilities of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and hybrid practices as writing for the page, as well as for performance, sound, installation, and image-based pieces. Readings include diverse examples of genre and form, as well as investigations of literary and thematic terminology. Students generate weekly responses to reading and writing exercises that focus on understanding the mechanics of writing, and are introduced to workshopping techniques and etiquette.

A study of the nature of the novel as an invented form of literary art. This course typically includes works by a variety of authors representative of a wide range of cultures and historical periods, so that the variety of the novel is explored.

This course, in which we¿ll read three novels and a handful of short stories, focuses on fiction¿s ability to represent interiority. We will read these texts closely in order to understand the various techniques at fiction¿s disposal that are used to narrate consciousness and depict the experience of having a body. At the same time, we will study the ways in which these same works simultaneously situate their characters within their larger social, political, and historical contexts, in this way blending the micro with the macro¿or the internal with the external. Novels by Colson Whitehead, Han Kang, and Anuk Arudpragasam. Short stories by Virginia Woolf, Lydia Davis, and others.

This course offers an introduction to the theory and practice of nonviolence. Students will study nonviolence as a philosophy of social and political change, in large part by reading the writings of important nonviolent theorists and activists, including Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Vaclav Havel. We will also explore the history of specific nonviolent movements, in which this theory has been applied and tested, with special focus on the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In their own project, students will investigate the potential and limits of nonviolent change by researching other nonviolent movements in order to answer questions that arise during our study of this rich, complex topic.

In this course students will create a singular written project and enrich their understanding of how that project fits into a larger tradition. Through full-class workshops, small-group critiques, individual conferences, and engaged revision, students will deepen the grooves of their writing process and cultivate a practice that is open to feedback and that lets in surprise. Students' thesis projects can take multiple forms: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, comics, drama, hypertext, performance, hybrid work, or a combination thereof. The course's readings and inquiries will be driven both by students' own studies into material significant to their writing and by their productive engagement with their classmates' work. By the end of the semester, students will have completed a BFAW thesis, consisting of three parts: (1) a creative project; (2) an annotated bibliography; and (3) a reflective essay, which will examine an issue of craft, subject, process, or genre.