Reading and Writing the City

LIT4253.01
Course System Home Terms Spring 2015 Reading and Writing the City

Course Description

Summary

***Time Change*** Rilke and Walter Benjamin stalked Paris; Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens walked London's streets at night; H.P. Lovecraft scoured the sewers underneath Providence; a whole universe of writers (Edith Wharton, Herman Melville, Joseph Mitchell) saw New York through unromantic eyes. In this course we'll read fiction and non-fiction about the city from across the urban canon, featuring flaneurs, fierce social climbers, and savage detectives alike, picking it apart to see what makes it tick. Students will write their own encounters with the urban uncanny (both fiction and non-fiction) and refine them in regular workshops. Students are only allowed to take one Reading and Writing course per semester. Corequisite: Students will be required to attend Wednesday literary evenings.

Prerequisites

A writing sample must be submitted to banastas@bennington by November 3. A class list will be posted on November 10.

Please contact the faculty member :

Instructor

  • Benjamin Anastas

Day and Time

Academic Term

Spring 2015

Area of Study

Credits

4

Course Level

4000

Maximum Enrollment

15