Writing the Self

Catalog description

In this course, we will study nonfiction prose from a range of times and places. To focus our studies, we will investigate how a wide variety of authors have used writing to express, explore, and create a sense of self. When sharing their lives with an audience of readers, how do these authors navigate the territory between the private and public spheres, between internal experience and external reality, between self and environment? To answer this question, we will read a variety of nonfiction forms including diaries, essays, autobiographies, and graphic memoirs. Throughout the course, we will discuss issues of literary meaning, form, and value.