Reading as a Writer

Catalog description

4 points, discussion/seminar. First offered spring 2016, and every semester thereafter. Prerequisite (or co-requisite): Literary Interpretation (ENGL-UA 200). This seminar is a class in creative as well as critical reading. This class posits reading as an activity and explores reading and writing as reciprocal activities: no strong writers are not also strong readers. What can we learn from a text's forms, modes, codes, and affects? What can we also learn from theories of literature (of poetry and poetics, or drama, of the novel or narrative in general)? How can we read both with and against the grain? And how can a profound engagement with criticism, commentary, and theory help us become better “makers” ourselves? This course assumes that writing is an effect of, and in a feedback loop with, reading: thus this seminar aims to strengthen your capacities for pattern recognition – i.e. sophistication about genre, style, mode. Regular assignments aim to provide a space for critical experiments in reading and writing; the syllabus offers models and goads for reflection and response. Students will direct and distill their inquiries into a substantial final paper (or project). Open only to English majors.