ENROLL

Sun Yung Shin

Social justice is fairness as it manifests in society, but who gets to determine what fairness looks, sounds, feels like? The self-described Black Canadian poet Dionne Brand says that she doesn’t write toward justice because that doesn’t exist, but that she writes against tyranny. If we use that framework, how does that change our own writing and our own notions of justice in our or any time? What is the role of literary writing, especially fiction, the essay, and poetry in the collective and individual quest to understand and build conditions that could yield increased potential for social justice? In this course, students will read, analyze, discuss, and write about various texts that might be considered to be against myriad tyrannies, if not necessarily toward social justice. Authors may include Octavia Butler, Phillip Metres, Toni Morrison, Myung Mi Kim, and M. NourbeSe Philipe.

Gregory G Hewett

This workshop offers you ways of developing poetic craft, voice, and vision in a small-group setting. Your poetry and individual expression is the heart and soul of the course. Through intensive writing and revision of poems written in a variety of styles and forms, you will create a significant portfolio. 

Prerequisite: One prior 6 credit English course

Gregory B Smith

An advanced course in the writing of fiction. Students will write three to four short stories or novel chapters which will be read and critiqued by the class. 

Prerequisite: English 160, 161, 263, 265, 270, 271, 273, Cinema and Media Studies 271, 278, 279, Cross Cultural Studies 270 or Theater 246