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. Students are assigned reading and writing exercises, and discuss each other's writing in workshop or small critique sessions.

Student work is the primary focus of this workshop, along with analysis of short stories with a wide variety of themes and styles. Students learn and practice elements of the craft of writing short fiction, such as the development of form, story, character, dialogue, and style. In-class workshop sessions offer a means of acquiring skills for critical analysis of one?s own writing and that of others, as well as attendant strategies for the process of revision. Readings may include stories by Hawthorne, Poe, Crane, James, Woolf, Mansfield, Faulkner, Kafka, Hemingway, Singer, Borges, O?Connor, Barthelme, Paley, as well as contemporary practitioners.

This course will serve as a rigorous, systematic introduction to the concept of narrative. By analyzing a variety of narrative forms (especially short fiction, film, and comics) students will learn what virtually all narratives have in common. Students will gain an understanding of narrative as a particular mode for both creating and conveying meaning. Our primary texts will include short stories by Jumpha Lahiri and David Means, the film The Third Man, and Alison Bechdel's autobiographical comic Fun Home. In addition to our primary sources, students will read key works on narrative theory.

This course will serve as a rigorous, systematic introduction to the concept of narrative. By analyzing a variety of narrative forms (especially short fiction, film, and comics) students will learn what virtually all narratives have in common. Students will gain an understanding of narrative as a particular mode for both creating and conveying meaning. Our primary texts will include short stories by Jumpha Lahiri and David Means, the film The Third Man, and Alison Bechdel's autobiographical comic Fun Home. In addition to our primary sources, students will read key works on narrative theory.

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.