First-Year Writing Sem: The Radical Eye: Aesthetic Experience in New York

Catalog description

Crossing on the Brooklyn ferry in 1855, Walt Whitman famously declared, “I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence.” Writing during a period of democratic ferment, Whitman used the expansive form of free verse to capture the embodied release he felt walking through crowded streets. In the vital experience of the city, Whitman saw the potential for personal as well as cultural transformation, and many writers in “generations hence” have seized this potential. Radical expression has become the basis for new identities and new conceptions of New York that challenge social limitations. In this seminar, we will examine the cultural history of New York since Whitman’s time through the eyes of selected writers in context of the movements that shaped them – labor, feminist, anti-racist, and queer – and parallel experiments in art, music, and film. Drawing on poetry, short fiction, and memoir, we will consider how creative expression mediates historical experience to transform the collective understanding of the city. Students will complete three papers that analyze individual works and authors as well as develop their own perspective on the urban experience. Readings include Whitman, Jose Martí, Djuna Barnes, Langston Hughes, Nathanael West, Frank O’Hara, Joan Didion, The Velvet Underground, Audre Lordé, David Wojnarowicz, Nas, and N.K. Jemisin, supplemented by readings in New York history.