Course Description
Summary
This scriptorium, a “place for writing,” functions as a class for writers interested in improving their academic essay-writing skills. We will read to write and write to read. Much of our time will be occupied with writing and revising—essai means “trial” or “attempt”—as we work to create new habits and strategies for our analytical writing. Our learning goals include practicing to write with complexity, imagination, and clarity, as we read model examples of form and content on the theme of Beauty. How is Beauty defined, created, reified, critiqued, rejected, or renewed? Who gets to determine what is beautiful and what is not? How does cultural and historical context affect what is deemed beautiful? What is the structure of the perception of Beauty? How does Beauty affect us and change us? The readings in the Scriptorium focus on diverse and inclusive perspectives. This course may include the following authors: Gloria Anzaldúa, Alexander Alberro, Balzac, Roland Barthes, John Berger, Judith Butler, Octavia Butler, Stuart Cosgrove, Stuart Hall, Saidiya Hartman, Cathy Park Hong, Keats, Nella Larsen, Robin Coste Lewis, Clarice Lispector, Sianne Ngai, Ovid, Patricia Pinho, Plato, Claudia Rankine, Elaine Scarry, Shakespeare, Susan Sontag, Simone Weil. This course will be remotely accessible.
