B1615 Hybrid Experimental Poetics: Questions of Meaning

Prof. Laura Hinton
Mondays 6:45 – 8:35pm
Section 1HJ (21326)

This experimental Craft course will ask students to intellectually engage with questions of textual “meaning” through the making (and unmaking) of language and signs. Throughout this course, we will experiment with both form and “meaning,” through studying and creating works that juxtapose a literary language with a multi-media form. This juxtaposition can often produce radical art “hybrids” that produce while questioning textual meaning(s) on multiple planes. Narratives are opened up, fixed “meanings” are suspended, conventional cultural assumptions are examined, authoritarian literary discourses related to white patriarchy and the subjectivities these demand are questioned and challenged.  We will study the “nothingness” that results, and how this mode of creative production of “hybrid poetics” has its own deep power. We will read theory pieces and explore examples of such radical hybrid texts in this course.  And we will work on producing hybrid texts ourselves, collectively.
The course begins with a foundational theoretical piece on the making of meaning through the language of signs by French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, so that we are thinking about signifying systems. We will then go on to explore poetics theory pieces by several contemporary writers, including Lyn Hejinian, Leslie Scalapino, Fred Moten, among others.  We will first explore the idea of sight and visual description, through the writings of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the Soviet / Ukrainian author Arkadii Dragomoshchenko (as translated by Hejinian). Then we will move on to explore works of literature that involve literal sight, like the artist book or a conceptual piece by Erica Hunt that engages the “seeing” of American blackness with a gallery installation. We will also explore the phenomenon of sound—as both an element within literary texts, especially poetry, but also as an independent medium of its own that can be juxtaposed against and made part of literary writings. Sound will be particularly important in several examples drawn from the African American jazz-poetics tradition, exemplified in work by Langston Hughes (as sung by Nina Simone), Jayne Cortez, and Amiri and Amina Baraka. 
Later in the course we will study works of both video poetry as well radical performance literatures by poets like Anne Waldman and others. The design of this Critical Practice course provides readings that ideally will stimulate students’ own creative hybrid impulses in art, as well as provide intellectually engaging examples of such work, mostly drawn from U.S. contemporary poetics but not exclusively.

Laura Hinton is a poet, literary critic, and editor, as well as an educator. Her poetry books include Ubermutter’s Death Dance and Sisyphus My Love (To Record a Dream in a Bathtub), published by BlazeVox. Her critical books include The Perverse Gaze of Sympathy: Sadomasochistic Sentiments from Clarissa to Rescue 911 (SUNY Press), We Who Love to Be Astonished: Experimental Women’s Writing and Performance Poetics (co-editor) and Jayne Cortez, Adrienne Rich, and the Feminist Superhero: Voice, Vision, Politics and Performance in the U.S. Contemporary Women’s Poetics (editor). Her essays, poet interviews, and reviews have appeared in numerous books and journals including Contemporary Literature, Postmodern Culture, Textual Practice, Women’s Studies, Rain Taxi, Jacket2, Poetry Project Newsletter, and The Journal of the Academy of American Poets, among many others. She often works in hybrid media, and her poetry with photography and or/ video have been published in several journals including Yew, Madhatter Review, Feminist Studies, Bird Dog, How2, Poetry Seen and Red Fez. She has performed her poetry in venues from Maine to Tucson to New York City. She is a Professor of English who teaches a range of subjects from feminist and critical literary theory, poetics, film studies, contemporary literature, and women’s literature.

B1616 Bible, Myth, and Contemporary Literature

Prof. Mark J. Mirsky
Thursdays 6:45 – 8:35pm
Section 4TU (21331)

The Bible, Myth and Modern Literature is designed to introduce Creative Writing student who write fiction, or graduate students in Literature to how questions of good and evil, belief in an afterlife, the idea of the hero or heroine, human integrity, raised in texts from the world of Antiquity continue to concern writers in the Twentieth Century. Books like The Sumerian/ Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, and chapters of Homer’s Odyssey, will alternate with stories of the Polish writer, Bruno Schulz, readings from The Book of Genesis, The Book of Job. with Franz Kafka’s The Trial, and Max Frisch’s Homo Faber. Among the contemporary writers whose books are included is William Faulkner, Milan Kundera, Cynthia Ozick, Charles Baldwin, Bruno Schulz, Isak Dinesen, Jorge Luis Borges, and Donald Barthelme. The instructor requires the submission of two questions before each week’s class, about the reading assigned for that week. At the end of the course students must submit a critical paper on one or two of the books, or a creative response based on one of the books from the syllabus. This final paper should number between nine and ten pages or 2,500 words.
In addition to the books and stories that students are required to read, and ask questions about, the instructor will provide further reading as background to the class discussion. These will include pages from Hesiod’s Theogony, Chapters from The Book of Samuel 2, (the story of King David and Absalom), The Gospel of Matthew, work by Flannery O’Connor, Marcel Proust, Miguel de Unamuno and Robert Musil.

Tentative Reading List:
The Epic of Gilgamesh, 2nd Norton Crit. Ed.
The Odyssey, Richard Lattimore translation
Genesis: King James Bible
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (PDF)
The Book of Job, Edward Greenstein trans.
The Trial, Franz Kafka, Breon Mitchell trans.
“Sorrow Acre” Isak Dinesen (PDF)
Homo Faber, Max Frisch
Absalom, Absalom, William Faulkner
Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin
Collected Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges trans. by Andrew Hurley
Sixty Stories of Donald Barthelme.  

The founding editor of Fiction in 1972, with Donald Barthelme, Max and Marianne Frisch, which  publishes from offices at The City College, Professor Mark Jay Mirsky is the author of five novels, Thou Worm Jacob, Proceedings of the Rabble, The Red Adam, Puddingstone, and Blue Hill Avenue (the last, listed among the 100 Essential Books of New England—by The Boston Globe.) He has published a collection of novellas, The Secret Table, as well as five books of criticism and journalism, My Search for the Messiah, The Absent Shakespeare, The Drama in Shakespeare’s Sonnets—”A Satire to Decay,” Dante, Eros and Kabbalah, and A Mother’s Steps in addition to numerous stories and articles.  He is the editor of the Diaries of Robert Musil, co-editor of the two volume History of Pinsk (Stanford University Press), and Rabbinic Fantasies (Yale University Press). His essays and reviews have appeared in Partisan Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Washington Post ‘s Book World, The Boston Globe, and other places.

This course is also available under Literature.

B1955 Writing for the Culture
Finding Your Place as Writer, Author, and Literary Citizen

Prof. David Groff
Thursdays 4:45 – 6:35pm
Section 4RS (21296)

As an MFA prose writer, poet, or dramatist, you can cultivate your vocation and establish yourself in the literary culture as an author with a vital voice. This course introduces you to the practices and strategies of publishing your work, as you write short literary nonfiction that prepares the way for your first book of fiction or nonfiction, your collection of poetry, or your play or script, as you define and advance your singular identity as a writer.
The course features two strands that will alternate and interact over the semester:
Becoming a published writer and author. As you learn about the “MFA vs. NYC” book publishing realms, literary journals, general interest magazines, online sites, reading series, and postgraduate options, you’ll explore various venues for your writing—ones that square with your ambitions and aesthetic—and submit your writing to them, composing and honing query and pitch letters. You’ll master the dreaded Artist’s Statement required for grant proposals and residency applications. You’ll deconstruct the dynamics of the annual AWP writers conference, to be held in Seattle this March. You’ll discover how to create new opportunities, build community, find readerships, and foster creative possibilities.
Becoming a literary citizen and culture worker. As you define your career path and develop and your writerly identity, you’ll become a contributor to your culture by writing and submitting for publication 3000 words of nonfiction—personal essays, lyric esays, reviews, interviews, literary criticism, and op eds—that complement the concerns of your other creative writing. You’ll read many examples of literary nonfiction and use them as models. You’ll workshop the nonfiction you write for the course and read and respond in writing to the work of your fellow MFA students. And you’ll interact with visiting writers/culture workers and publishing professionals who will give practical advice about how to make yourself heard as a writer.
By the end of this course, you’ll have begun the challenging work of moving from MFA writer to professional author, with a distinctive voice that resounds for your readers and helps cultivate your culture.  

David Groff received his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. He also has an MA in English and Expository Writing from the University of Iowa. His two books of poetry are Clay (Trio House Press, 2013) and Theory of Devolution (University of Illinois Press, 2002). He has co-edited the anthologies Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners​.

B1986 Craft of YA Fiction, Writing for Teens: from Idea to Publication

Prof. Mayra Cuevas
Wednesdays 4:45 – 6:35pm
Section 3FG (54631)
ONLINE

This practical course guides students through the craft of writing a young adult novel, while incorporating real-world insight into paths to publication. 
Students will engage in active craft techniques for idea, character and plot development. They will learn to use their own life experience, memories, identity exploration and cultural background to create a more authentic narrative that feels fresh and original. Through the course of 15 weeks, students will develop their own idea into a novel-length story concept, and then into the first chapters of a partial manuscript. In the process, they will gain a deeper understanding of working with critique groups, the young adult publishing landscape, the business of publishing a novel, query letters, book contracts, and the relationship between authors, agents and editors. This course includes a mix of lectures, real-time writing sessions, group feedback and dedicated time for student question and answer.

Mayra Cuevas is a CNN award-winning journalist and the author of the young adult novels Does My Body Offend You? a Target YA Book Club selection co-written with Marie Marquardt, and Salty, Bitter, Sweet. Her short story Resilient was published as part of the anthology Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading and Writing YA. Her new young adult novel and debut picture book are scheduled for publication in 2024 and 2025 respectively with Knopf, an imprint of Penguin Random House. She is currently developing her debut adult title in collaboration with Alloy Entertainment. She is the co-founder of the Latinx KidLit Book Festival and member of Las Musas Books authors collective. She has been a guest speaker at the LA Festival of Books, YALLWest, Decatur Book Festival and the Six Bridges Book Festival, among others. She loves connecting with readers and is passionate about inspiring new writers to create their best work, especially creators from historically marginalized spaces. She has served as faculty and presenter at The Highlights Foundation, The Author’s Guild, the Romance Writers of America national conference, Las Musas Books and various high school and college classrooms across the country.

B2030 The Evidence of Things Unseen: Art, Archives, and Harlem

Prof. William Gibbons
Wednesdays 6:45 – 8:35pm
Section 3HJ (21283)

The Evidence of Things Unseen: Art, Archives, and Harlem is a hands-on course exposing students to the practice of archival and academic research.  The course will help students navigate archives and libraries while exploring the cultural, social, and political forces that influenced and defined the Harlem Renaissance and its writers. Students will work with primary and secondary archival materials related to Harlem’s role as an important artistic and political center housed in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and other Harlem community and cultural organizations.  By the end of the course, students will understand the historical development of the field of archives, current issues, trends, and theories that shape the archival profession​.

Professor William Gibbons is a librarian and an archivist.  He teaches urban policy, library science, and archival research at The City College of New York (CCNY) and is the Curator of Archives & Special Collections in the City College Libraries. He is a resource on Harlem and helps students and researchers become knowledgeable library users to use libraries and archives to their fullest potential.  His writing and research are focused on curating and preserving evidence of cultural heritage unseen.

This course is also available under Literature.

B2099 The Gothic and Otherness

Prof. Lyn Di Iorio
Tuesdays 4:45 – 6:35pm
Section 2RS (21251)

Contemporary culture is characterized by a reawakened interest in “Gothic”—the aesthetic discourse of terror created by Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto in 1764.  This seminar weaves together the critical strands forming the main approaches to the Gothic: American Gothic; British Gothic; Female Gothic; Queer Gothic; the sublime; the uncanny; and the abject.  In addition, I propose that the contemporary Gothic aesthetic in our Americas uncovers important issues of race, gender, class, and political violence on which there has been relatively scant commentary.  Consequently, we will also put special emphasis on Latin American, Latinx, African American, and Caribbean Gothic fiction.
How do Gothic monsters reveal, and revel in, social tensions?  How do revisions of classic Gothic texts improve on the originals?  Do Gothic tropes improve (or worsen) with repetition? How do fear, horror, mutilation, melancholia, and loss constitute a vital aesthetic structuring of the human psyche, linking Freud’s vision of the mind to the dynamics of Gothic villainy and victimization?  From Dracula to Get Out, from Shirley Jackson to Mariana Enriquez, why are we so drawn to the Gothic? 
Requirements: a paper-based presentation and a final essay or—if you are a creative writer—a short story based on Gothic tropes.

Lyn Sandín Di Iorio is a fiction writer and scholar.  A 2021-22 winner of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fiction Fellowship and a Rifkind Center Faculty Fellowship, she is currently completing Hurricanes and Other Stories, a short story collection.  She has recently published fiction in The Kenyon Review, Big Other and Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas; one of these stories was named “Distinguished Story” in Best American Short Stories 2021.  Her Gothic-inflected novel Outside the Bones was a top-five finalist for the 2012 John Gardner Fiction Prize; a Latinidad List Best Debut Novel; and winner of a Foreword Indies Silver Award.  Her book of literary criticism, Killing Spanish, focuses on Latinx identity.  She has also published widely on magical realism and women’s writing.  She graduated from Harvard University and Stanford University’s graduate creative writing program and received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. 

This course is also available under Literature.

B3002 Craft of the Novel

Prof. Keith Gandal
Wednesdays 6:45 – 8:35pm
Section 3HJ (21335)

In this Craft seminar, we will comprehensively analyze or break down novels from the writer’s point of view.  We will not be concerned, as in literature courses, with meaning or historical context, but rather with the construction of a novel.  We will look at a select number of novels as we analyze all aspects of the novel-writing craft: plot and action; conflict and suspense, promises and questions; setting a scene; openings, climaxes, and endings; issues of pacing; issues of style; characters; flashbacks, background information, and reveal; dialogue and description; sense of place and time; interior monologue, and so on. 
The focus will be on dramatic structure, which involves many of these elements—and whose effective achievement makes a book exciting to read—and we will use the analytic “textbook” that I feel is the best on the subject, namely Jack Bickham’s. (It is out of print, but available used.)
Regarding the choice of novels:  Iris Murdoch is a British novelist; the novels we’ll be reading were published in the 60s and 70s.  She has won a number of prizes, including the most prestigious British award for a novel, the Booker Prize, and she is arguably one of the great novelists in English in the second half of the 20^th century. 
This course was initially a response to student requests; another request was the use of my own novel, Cleveland Anonymous, of whose construction I obviously have full insider knowledge—and so provides a special opportunity for students to get an example of how a publishable novel gets conceived, put together, and edited.  But the use of my novel is something we will decide as a class.  If we do use it, to insure that there is no conflict of interest, I will lend students copies free of charge.
Requirements: Class participation; analytic term paper; final exam.
Tentative Texts:
Jack Bickham, Writing Novels That Sell
Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honorable Defeat, A Severed Head
Keith Gandal, Cleveland Anonymous

Keith Gandal is Professor of English, with a joint appointment in American Literature and Creative Writing.  His publications have had three foci: urban poverty, war and mobilization, and modern medicine and illness. His scholarly books include: War Isn’t the Only Hell: A New Reading of World War I American Literature (Johns Hopkins, 2018); The Gun and the Pen: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner and the Fiction of Mobilization (Oxford, 2008); The Virtues of the Vicious: Jacob Riis, Stephen Crane and the Spectacle of the Slum (Oxford, 1997). He is also the author of a novel, Cleveland Anonymous (North Atlantic Books, 2002).