Creative Writing for Social Justice: Feminist, Queer, and Trans Perspectives

Catalog description

In this multi-genre course we will study and practice the craft of creative writing, with a focus on what it means to write for social justice. You will be introduced to the elements of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. In each unit, you will complete regular in-class and out-of-class exercises, working toward the development of a short manuscript in each genre (experiments across genres very welcome). Throughout the course, we will be considering arguments about the relationship between writing and social justice, and developing our own. How have we been shaped, personally and politically, by reading and writing? In what ways have systems of power and oppression shaped who and how we read; who and what we write about; how we write and view our writing? What potential impact can we-through what we write-have on communities and institutions? What does it mean to write from an intersectional feminist perspective? How might a queer or trans or crip mode of writing operate? How have conversations about writing for social justice changed over time?