Genre Bending

Catalog description

In this advanced seminar we will examine and produce works of literary art that challenge our definition of genre. We will begin our exploration of genre bending by honing our powers of observation, conversation, and research through a series of guided activities designed to deepen our understanding of various people and places (real and imagined) from which our literary projects spring forth. While we work on building out our own personal, soon-to-be-bent, archives, we will simultaneously read contemporary works of literature from those known for their reckless regard of traditional genre boundaries: Layli Long Soldier, C.D. Wright, Valeria Luiselli, Jessie Ball, Claudia Rankin, Kathryn Scanlon, Alex Marzano-Lesnavitch among others.