*NEW* Summer 2021 - Who Can Recall? Writing (and Drawing) Time
Two comedic themes during the Pandemic of 2020 have been time and memory, and the discombobulation of both. In this seminar, we will read words and images recalling time, told in different forms. For publishing purposes, an item needs a “genre.” The items for this class may be convened under the genre “memoir,” in the form of essays, poems, drawings, and more conventional storytelling. Readings may include: James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son (1955); Lillian Smith’s Killers of the Dream (1949); Larry McMurtry’s In a Narrow Grave (1968); Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals (1980); Patricia Polacco’s My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother (1994); James McBride’s The Color of Water (1995); Jerry Stiller’s Married to Laughter (2000); Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006); Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant (2014); and Miranda Richmond Mouillot’s A Fifty-Year Silence (2015). Weekly (2-3 pp. double-spacing, 10-11 point font) close reading from the assigned text. Papers due at time of class. Participation is 40% of your grade; papers, 60%. Listening attentively to your neighbor is as important as speech for your participation grade.
