HENK13132U Writing in English: Creative Non-Fiction in English

This is a course for students from any disciplinary background and institute who are interested in exploring what it might mean to read and write creative non-fiction in the present moment. We will be looking at several aspects and sub-genres of creative non-fiction and their respective ways of responding to the challenges of a current moment, not least: 1) the construction of nature, 2) current political challenges from asylum law to race politics in the US, 3) the dynamics of gender, 4) the politics of empathy/difference. For those of you interested in writing academically for this course, you will be doing a review essay and a longer piece on the way one of these issues is being discussed today in the public sphere.

But, this course is also about the mechanics of writing. We will therefore be reading the texts on this course with an eye to their narration, their delivery of narrative, and what makes them readable/true/reliable/controversial. The course also offers opportunities to experiment with creating non-fiction and for participants to expand their own writing within this register through ending each class with a prompt exploring a specific technique of creative non-fiction. In practicing this aspect of writing, you will be thinking about questions like: how do you position yourself as a narrator? For what kind of audience? How do journalistic topics work to generate and sustain interest?

We will be reading both longer and shorter texts by recent masters of the craft – stand out figures in the worlds of nature writing, literary journalism, and the essay as polemic – alongside essays by celebrated writers. In each case, we will be discussing both the issues raised by and the craft involved in the work we read. Our weekly meetings will be accompanied by a lecture from practicing writers and literary scholars. Moreover, there will be four longer workshops delving into the techniques of each topic.