Advanced Creative Nonfiction: Twenty-First-Century Senses

In this course we will write essays (lyric, argumentative, and otherwise), memoir, and reported pieces all engaged with sensorial worldmaking and questions of environmental justice and environmental risk. We will look at how our senses function, particularly in light of the popularization of virtual communication and experience, and explore interconnections of aesthetics, geography, politics, industry, agriculture, and perception. We will read critical writing by Hsuan L. Hsu, Sianne Ngai, and Susan Stewart; meditations by Anne Carson and Renee Gladman; and study documentary projects such as LaToya Ruby Frazier’s photo essay on the water crisis in Flint, MI. Through weekly readings and creative exercises, workshops, plus a final project, we will attempt to come to our senses, creating deeply researched and felt nonfiction. We will additionally discuss the process of pitching to magazines and learn how to develop a longer project, such as an essay collection or nonfiction book. (Any one 0100-level CRWR course.)