brown creative writing mfa faculty

Graduate Programs

Literary arts.

The Literary Arts graduate program offers tracks in fiction, poetry and digital/cross-disciplinary.

Students take eight courses, half in writing and half in elective studies, over a two–year period to ensure maximum time for writing. In general, students take workshops with two and sometimes three different faculty writers in their respective genres.

(Note: The MFA in Playwriting is offered by Theatre and Performance Studies.)

Students often select electives such as workshops that focus on literary translation or on special topics (e.g., narrative strategies), but may also take studio and performing arts courses, and classes from all academic fields. A creative thesis is submitted in the final semester. The program numbers approximately twenty-five students in any given academic year.

Additional Resources

Performance-focused seminar room/laboratory; literary arts seminar room; Clerestory magazine; Writers on Writing reading series; writers in residence program; Geri Braman Hill Lecture; C.D. Wright Lecture, Hawkes, Honig and Waldrop Prizes in Literary Arts; John Hay Library's Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays.

Application Information

Application requirements, gre subject:.

Not required

GRE General:

Writing sample:.

Required (must be in one genre). The writing sample is the most important part of the application.

Dates/Deadlines

Application deadline, tuition and funding.

The Graduate School provides a Financial Aid package in the first year of study covering tuition, health fee and health insurance and a full fellowship stipend. In year two, those students who are in good standing and are appropriate for the classroom are offered a two-semester teaching assistantship, which covers tuition, health fee and health insurance, and provides a stipend.

Completion Requirements

Three courses in creative writing workshops, four graduate–level electives, and a thesis.

Alumni Careers

Contact and Location

Literary arts program, mailing address.

• Program Faculty
• Program Handbook
• Graduate School Handbook

Literary Arts

Application requirements.

Admission is highly selective, and is based primarily on the quality of the applicant’s writing.

• Graduate School application fee ( or an approved fee waiver request)
• Online application form
• Personal statement
• Supplemental essay
• Writing sample (upload as one PDF file)
• Transcripts (Upload a PDF file -- if you are accepted, you'll submit official transcripts at that stage)
• Referee information (upload information for at least three letters of support)
• TOEFL or IELTS results (for international students ) - Brown code for TOEFL: 3094; Department code: leave blank. For IELTS, have score sent to Brown Graduate School, Box 1867, Providence RI 02912 USA.
• FAFSA form. This should be filed in November, December or January by ALL U.S. applicants who seek departmental funding, even if you don't plan to take out a student loan.
• GRE scores (subject or general) are not required (nor are they given consideration).

Download the Application Checklist (DOCX)

The online MFA application is available from mid-September through 15 December each year. Applications must be finalized and submitted electronically by 11:59 pm EST on the 15 December deadline. The online application system will no longer process new or incomplete applications after 11:59 pm EST on 15 December. If your application is pending but not sent by that deadline, it WILL NOT get processed.

While you must post the information by the deadline, the referees may submit their letters through the online system after the 15 December deadline has passed; we recommend that letters be submitted no later than 15 January.

No Late Applications

No late applications will be considered and no changes/updates to applications or writing samples will be accepted. We don’t have rolling admission, nor do we have spring admissions. If you miss the December 15 deadline, you will have to wait and apply next year.

Previous Advanced Degree

Applicants who have previously completed all or part of an advanced degree in creative writing at another university should include a separate letter explaining what special circumstances lead them to pursue an MFA at Brown (this should be uploaded with your personal statement – but should start on a new page, and carry a header of "Work toward a master's degree in a related field"). Without this explanatory letter, the faculty will not review the application. (The primary accepted basis for completing a second advanced degree in writing is the stated desire to pursue work in a different genre.)

Electronic Submission

All applications must be submitted electronically at the online application web site using one of the following browsers Firefox (within latest 2 versions); Microsoft Internet Explorer (8.0 and above); Chrome (within latest 2 versions); Safari (5.1.7+ or latest version).

Federal Financial Aid Form

During the months of November, December and January, applicants who are US citizens (or holders of permanent resident status from the US State Dept.) should complete the Federal Financial Aid Form, listing Brown as a school to which results should be sent. Not completing this process may jeopardize financial aid offers.

Frequently Asked Questions

In the past few years, the department has received between 900 and 1,050 applications. This year, the department anticipates offering admission to five fiction writers, five poets, and two candidates who apply to pursue work through the digital and cross-disciplinary track.

We’re sorry to say that the department is not in a position to critique an applicant’s manuscript, either before or after the application process takes place.

We suggest that you think of it as an introduction to your writing sample.  You can talk about yourself, your aesthetics, your past experiences, why you think Brown Literary Arts is a good fit for you, etc. While the Graduate School asks that your personal statement be no more than two pages, our Department recommends that your personal statement be 1-4 double-spaced pages.

You can manually enter your school information. Simply type the school's name directly onto the application form (this may require you to provide a few more details, such as city and country, but this should be relatively simple for you to do).

Under Select Your GPA Scoring Type, choose Non-Numerical. For Non-Numerical Grades, choose Descriptive Grade. This will yield three fields: your grade, highest possible grade and passing grade. You can type in these fields the information you wish to share. Please note that the GPA will not be a primary basis for determining entrance into our program.

No – you should upload your transcripts as a PDF file. If you have attended more than one institution, make the series of transcripts into one multi-page PDF file. If you are accepted to Brown, you’ll need to have original transcripts sent from your schools to Brown prior to enrolling.  

Yes. ALL    applicants who are U.S. citizens who are seeking departmental aid must complete the  FAFSA .  This is true even if you don't plan to apply for student loans. You should complete the FAFSA in November, December or January.

International students do not need to complete the FAFSA.

Yes, you will need to reapply. You must complete a new application, submit a new application fee, and send in new supporting materials.

Letters of Recommendation

When completing the application, you may register your referees’ names and electronic mail addresses. The referees will receive email telling them that they’ve been registered and by whom, and will be provided with login information so that they can visit the site and upload the recommendations.  

Research whether or not the dossier service can upload letters on your behalf. If the service can do so, follow the directions provided by that service for completing this information on your Brown application. If your dossier service cannot upload letters on your behalf, you may have them sent to the Graduate School in hard copy to: Brown University, Graduate School, Box 1867, Providence RI 02912.

While the Graduate School suggests that at least two letters come from instructors with whom you have worked, we encourage you to arrange for letters from any three people who can speak cogently about you as a writer, whether or not they have been your teacher.

If your application form, personal statement and writing sample have been received by the deadline, then your application will be reviewed, even if a letter of reference hasn’t yet arrived. Of course, letters that arrive on time may affect your candidacy. Letters must be received by 15 January  at the latest  in order to be reviewed along with the rest of your application; but letters may arrive after that in order to make your application complete.

Additional information

Campus visits, international applicants.

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15 Best Creative Writing MFA Programs in 2024

May 15, 2024

Whether you studied at a top creative writing university or are a high school dropout who will one day become a bestselling author , you may be considering an MFA in Creative Writing. But is a writing MFA genuinely worth the time and potential costs? How do you know which program will best nurture your writing? If you’re considering an MFA, this article walks you through the best full-time, low residency, and online Creative Writing MFA programs in the United States.

What are the best Creative Writing MFA programs?

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this article, let’s start with the basics. What is an MFA, anyway?

A Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is a graduate degree that usually takes from two to three years to complete. Applications typically require a sample portfolio, usually 10-20 pages (and sometimes up to 30-40) of your best writing. Moreover, you can receive an MFA in a particular genre, such as Fiction or Poetry, or more broadly in Creative Writing. However, if you take the latter approach, you often have the opportunity to specialize in a single genre.

Wondering what actually goes on in a creative writing MFA beyond inspiring award-winning books and internet memes ? You enroll in workshops where you get feedback on your creative writing from your peers and a faculty member. You enroll in seminars where you get a foundation of theory and techniques. Then, you finish the degree with a thesis project. Thesis projects are typically a body of polished, publishable-quality creative work in your genre—fiction, nonfiction, or poetry.

Why should I get an MFA in Creative Writing?

You don’t need an MFA to be a writer. Just look at Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison or bestselling novelist Emily St. John Mandel.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of reasons you might still want to get a creative writing MFA. The first is, unfortunately, prestige. An MFA from a top program can help you stand out in a notoriously competitive industry to be published.

The second reason: time. Many MFA programs give you protected writing time, deadlines, and maybe even a (dainty) salary.

Third, an MFA in Creative Writing is a terminal degree. This means that this degree allows you to teach writing at the university level, especially after you publish a book.

Fourth: resources. MFA programs are often staffed by brilliant, award-winning writers; offer lecture series, volunteer opportunities, and teaching positions; and run their own (usually prestigious) literary magazines. Such resources provide you with the knowledge and insight you’ll need to navigate the literary and publishing world on your own post-graduation.

But above all, the biggest reason to pursue an MFA is the community it brings you. You get to meet other writers—and share feedback, advice, and moral support—in relationships that can last for decades.

Types of Creative Writing MFA Programs

Here are the different types of programs to consider, depending on your needs:

Fully-Funded Full-Time Programs

These programs offer full-tuition scholarships and sweeten the deal by actually paying you to attend them.

• Pros: You’re paid to write (and teach).
• Cons: Uprooting your entire life to move somewhere possibly very cold.

Full-Time MFA Programs

These programs include attending in-person classes and paying tuition (though many offer need-based and merit scholarships).

• Pros: Lots of top-notch non-funded programs have more assets to attract world-class faculty and guests.
• Cons: It’s an investment that might not pay itself back.

Low-Residency MFA Programs

Low-residency programs usually meet biannually for short sessions. They also offer one-on-one support throughout the year. These MFAs are more independent, preparing you for what the writing life is actually like.

• Pros: No major life changes required. Cons: Less time dedicated to writing and less time to build relationships.

Online MFA Programs

Held 100% online. These programs have high acceptance rates and no residency requirement. That means zero travel or moving expenses.

• Pros: No major life changes required.
• Cons: These MFAs have less name recognition.

The Top 15 Creative Writing MFA Programs Ranked by Category

The following programs are selected for their balance of high funding, impressive return on investment, stellar faculty, major journal publications , and impressive alums.

FULLY FUNDED MFA PROGRAMS

1) johns hopkins university , mfa in fiction/poetry.

This two-year program offers an incredibly generous funding package: $39,000 teaching fellowships each year. Not to mention, it offers that sweet, sweet health insurance, mind-boggling faculty, and the option to apply for a lecture position after graduation. Many grads publish their first book within three years (nice). No nonfiction MFA (boo).

• Location: Baltimore, MD
• Incoming class size: 8 students (4 per genre)
• Admissions rate: 4-8%
• Alumni: Chimamanda Adichie, Jeffrey Blitz, Wes Craven, Louise Erdrich, Porochista Khakpour, Phillis Levin, ZZ Packer, Tom Sleigh, Elizabeth Spires, Rosanna Warren

2) University of Texas, James Michener Center

The only MFA that offers full and equal funding for every writer. It’s three years long, offers a generous yearly stipend of $30k, and provides full tuition plus a health insurance stipend. Fiction, poetry, playwriting, and screenwriting concentrations are available. The Michener Center is also unique because you study a primary genre and a secondary genre, and also get $4,000 for the summer.

• Location : Austin, TX
• Incoming class size : 12 students
• Acceptance rate: a bone-chilling less-than-1% in fiction; 2-3% in other genres
• Alumni: Fiona McFarlane, Brian McGreevy, Karan Mahajan, Alix Ohlin, Kevin Powers, Lara Prescott, Roger Reeves, Maria Reva, Domenica Ruta, Sam Sax, Joseph Skibell, Dominic Smith

3) University of Iowa

The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is a 2-year program on a residency model for fiction and poetry. This means there are low requirements, and lots of time to write groundbreaking novels or play pool at the local bar. All students receive full funding, including tuition, a living stipend, and subsidized health insurance. The Translation MFA , co-founded by Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, is also two years long but with more intensive coursework. The Nonfiction Writing Program is a prestigious three-year MFA program and is also intensive.

• Incoming class size: 25 each for poetry and fiction; 10-12 for nonfiction and translation.
• Acceptance rate: 2.7-3.7%
• Fantastic Alumni: Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Sandra Cisneros, Joy Harjo, Garth Greenwell, Kiley Reid, Brandon Taylor, Eula Biss, Yiyun Li, Jennifer Croft

Best MFA Creative Writing Programs (Continued) 

4) university of michigan.

Anne Carson famously lives in Ann Arbor, as do the MFA students in UMichigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. This is a big university town, which is less damaging to your social life. Plus, there’s lots to do when you have a $25,000 stipend, summer funding, and health care.

This is a 2-3-year program in either fiction or poetry, with an impressive reputation. They also have a demonstrated commitment to “ push back against the darkness of intolerance and injustice ” and have outreach programs in the community.

• Location: Ann Arbor, MI
• Incoming class size: 18 (9 in each genre)
• Acceptance rate: 2%
• Alumni: Brit Bennett, Vievee Francis, Airea D. Matthews, Celeste Ng, Chigozie Obioma, Jia Tolentino, Jesmyn Ward

5) Brown University

Brown offers an edgy, well-funded program in a place that only occasionally dips into arctic temperatures. All students are fully funded for 2 years, which includes tuition remission and a $32k yearly stipend. Students also get summer funding and—you guessed it—that sweet, sweet health insurance.

In the Brown Literary Arts MFA, students take only one workshop and one elective per semester. It’s also the only program in the country to feature a Digital/Cross Disciplinary Track.  Fiction and Poetry Tracks are offered as well.

• Location: Providence, RI
• Incoming class size: 12-13
• Acceptance rate: “highly selective”
• Alumni: Edwidge Danticat, Jaimy Gordon, Gayl Jones, Ben Lerner, Joanna Scott, Kevin Young, Ottessa Moshfegh

6) University of Arizona

This 3-year program with fiction, poetry, and nonfiction tracks has many attractive qualities. It’s in “ the lushest desert in the world, ” and was recently ranked #4 in creative writing programs, and #2 in Nonfiction. You can take classes in multiple genres, and in fact, are encouraged to do so. Plus, Arizona’s dry heat is good for arthritis.

This notoriously supportive program is fully funded. Moreover, teaching assistantships that provide a salary, health insurance, and tuition waiver are offered to all students. Tucson is home to a hopping literary scene, so it’s also possible to volunteer at multiple literary organizations and even do supported research at the US-Mexico Border.

• Location: Tucson, AZ
• Incoming class size: usually 6
• Acceptance rate: 1.2% (a refreshingly specific number after Brown’s evasiveness)
• Alumni: Francisco Cantú, Jos Charles, Tony Hoagland, Nancy Mairs, Richard Russo, Richard Siken, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, David Foster Wallace

7) Arizona State University 

With concentrations in fiction and poetry, Arizona State is a three-year funded program in arthritis-friendly dry heat. It offers small class sizes, individual mentorships, and one of the most impressive faculty rosters in the game. Moreover, it encourages cross-genre study.

Funding-wise, everyone has the option to take on a teaching assistantship position, which provides a tuition waiver, health insurance, and a yearly stipend of $25k. Other opportunities for financial support exist as well.

• Location: Tempe, AZ
• Incoming class size: 8-10
• Acceptance rate: 3% (sigh)
• Alumni: Tayari Jones, Venita Blackburn, Dorothy Chan, Adrienne Celt, Dana Diehl, Matthew Gavin Frank, Caitlin Horrocks, Allegra Hyde, Hugh Martin, Bonnie Nadzam

FULL-RESIDENCY MFAS (UNFUNDED)

8) new york university.

This two-year program is in New York City, meaning it comes with close access to literary opportunities and hot dogs. NYU also has one of the most accomplished faculty lists anywhere. Students have large cohorts (more potential friends!) and have a penchant for winning top literary prizes. Concentrations in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction are available.

• Location: New York, NY
• Incoming class size: ~60; 20-30 students accepted for each genre
• Acceptance rate: 6-9%
• Alumni: Nick Flynn, Nell Freudenberger, Aracelis Girmay, Mitchell S. Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, John Keene, Raven Leilani, Robin Coste Lewis, Ada Limón, Ocean Vuong

9) Columbia University

Another 2-3 year private MFA program with drool-worthy permanent and visiting faculty. Columbia offers courses in fiction, poetry, translation, and nonfiction. Beyond the Ivy League education, Columbia offers close access to agents, and its students have a high record of bestsellers. Finally, teaching positions and fellowships are available to help offset the high tuition.

• Incoming class size: 110
• Acceptance rate: not publicized (boo)
• Alumni: Alexandra Kleeman, Rachel Kushner, Claudia Rankine, Rick Moody, Sigrid Nunez, Tracy K. Smith, Emma Cline, Adam Wilson, Marie Howe, Mary Jo Bang

10) Sarah Lawrence 

Sarah Lawrence offers a concentration in speculative fiction in addition to the average fiction, poetry, and nonfiction choices. Moreover, they encourage cross-genre exploration. With intimate class sizes, this program is unique because it offers biweekly one-on-one conferences with its stunning faculty. It also has a notoriously supportive atmosphere, and many teaching and funding opportunities are available.

• Location: Bronxville, NY
• Incoming class size: 30-40
• Acceptance rate: not publicized
• Alumni: Cynthia Cruz, Melissa Febos, T Kira Madden, Alex Dimitrov, Moncho Alvarado

LOW RESIDENCY

11) bennington college.

This two-year program boasts truly stellar faculty, and meets twice a year for ten days in January and June. It’s like a biannual vacation in beautiful Vermont, plus mentorship by a famous writer. The rest of the time, you’ll be spending approximately 25 hours per week on reading and writing assignments. Students have the option to concentrate in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Uniquely, they can also opt for a dual-genre focus.

The tuition is $23,468 per year, with scholarships available. Additionally, Bennington offers full-immersion teaching fellowships to MFA students, which are extremely rare in low-residency programs.

• Location: Bennington, VT
• Acceptance rate: 53%
• Incoming class: 25-35
• Alumni: Larissa Pham, Andrew Reiner, Lisa Johnson Mitchell, and others

12)  Institute for American Indian Arts

This two-year program emphasizes Native American and First Nations writing. With truly amazing faculty and visiting writers, they offer a wide range of genres, including screenwriting, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. In addition, each student is matched with a faculty mentor who works with them one-on-one throughout the semester.

Students attend two eight-day residencies each year, in January and July, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At $12,000 in tuition a year, it boasts being “ one of the most affordable MFA programs in the country .”

• Location: Santa Fe, NM
• Incoming class size : 21
• Alumni: Tommy Orange, Dara Yen Elerath, Kathryn Wilder

13) Vermont College of Fine Arts

VCFA is the only graduate school on this list that focuses exclusively on the fine arts. Their MFA in Writing offers concentrations in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction; they also offer an MFA in Literary Translation and one of the few MFAs in Writing for Children and Young Adults . Students meet twice a year for nine days, in January and July, either in-person or online. Here, they receive one-on-one mentorship that continues for the rest of the semester. You can also do many travel residencies in exciting (and warm) places like Cozumel.

VCFA boasts amazing faculty and visiting writers, with individualized study options and plenty of one-on-one time. Tuition for the full two-year program is approximately $54k.

• Location : Various; 2024/25 residencies are in Colorado and California
• Incoming class size: 18-25
• Acceptance rate: 63%
• Alumnx: Lauren Markham, Mary-Kim Arnold, Cassie Beasley, Kate Beasley, Julie Berry, Bridget Birdsall, Gwenda Bond, Pablo Cartaya

ONLINE MFAS

14) university of texas at el paso.

UTEP is considered the best online MFA program, and features award-winning faculty from across the globe. Accordingly, this program is geared toward serious writers who want to pursue teaching and/or publishing. Intensive workshops allow submissions in Spanish and/or English, and genres include poetry and fiction.

No residencies are required, but an optional opportunity to connect in person is available every year. This three-year program costs about $25-30k total, depending on whether you are an in-state or out-of-state resident.

• Location: El Paso, TX
• Acceptance rate: “highly competitive”
• Alumni: Watch alumni testimonies here

15) Bay Path University

This 2-year online, no-residency program is dedicated entirely to nonfiction. Featuring a supportive, diverse community, Bay Path offers small class sizes, close mentorship, and an optional yearly field trip to Ireland.

There are many tracks, including publishing, narrative medicine, and teaching creative writing. Moreover, core courses include memoir, narrative journalism, food/travel writing, and the personal essay. Tuition is approximately $31,000 for the entire program, with scholarships available.

• Location: Longmeadow, MA
• Incoming class size: 20
• Alumni: Read alumni testimonies here

Best MFA Creative Writing Programs — Final Thoughts

Whether you’re aiming for a fully funded, low residency, or completely online MFA program, there are plenty of incredible options available—all of which will sharpen your craft while immersing you in the vibrant literary arts community.

Hoping to prepare for your MFA in advance? You might consider checking out the following:

• Best English Programs
• Best Colleges for Creative Writing
• Writing Summer Programs
• Best Writing Competitions for High School Students

Inspired to start writing? Get your pencil ready:

• 100 Creative Writing Prompts 
• 1 00 Tone Words to Express Mood in Your Writing
• 60 Senior Project Ideas
• Common App Essay Prompts

Best MFA Creative Writing Programs – References:

• https://www.pw.org/mfa
• The Creative Writing MFA Handbook: A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students , by Tom Kealey (A&C Black 2005)
• Graduate School Admissions

Julia Conrad

With a Bachelor of Arts in English and Italian from Wesleyan University as well as MFAs in both Nonfiction Writing and Literary Translation from the University of Iowa, Julia is an experienced writer, editor, educator, and a former Fulbright Fellow. Julia’s work has been featured in  The Millions ,  Asymptote , and  The Massachusetts Review , among other publications. To read more of her work, visit  www.juliaconrad.net

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News from Brown

Long-time literary arts professor sees new opportunities for brown arts initiative.

Thalia Field, the Brown Arts Initiative’s new faculty director and a professor of creative writing at the University, discussed her vision for the future of the arts at Brown.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As an undergraduate at Brown University, Thalia Field was a self-proclaimed “poster child for the Open Curriculum.” Fresh from a stint of professional theater work in Paris and Marseille, a young Field transferred to Brown and began building her own independent concentration.

“I looked across seven or eight disciplines to construct a view of the modern period from several points of view — art history, politics, economics, science,” Field said. “I was able to follow my intellectual curiosity without ever feeling restricted, which I don’t think I could have done anywhere else.”

Field graduated in 1988, proceeded to earn an MFA from Brown and, many years later, joined the creative writing faculty at the University. Reading her published work is like flipping through Brown’s course catalog, so diverse are the subjects she tackles. Her 2016 book “Experimental Animals: A Reality Fiction” draws on famous philosophical treatises and evolutionary scholarship to tell a story about the origins of laboratories and the rise of animal activism in 19 th -century Paris. And her short story collections touch on subjects as disparate as the history of nuclear testing, the development of seaside beaches and the social dynamics of chatrooms.

Today, Field is closing in on her first month at the helm of the Brown Arts Initiative . In many ways, the role is a perfect fit. Much like her self-created concentration and all of the writing and research she’s since undertaken, the BAI convenes multiple disciplines under one umbrella, encouraging collaboration both within the arts and outside of them and demonstrating that no art form exists in a silo. The connection between the BAI’s interdisciplinary roots and Field’s own is no coincidence: Field was part of early conversations that planted the seeds for the initiative, and she later served as chair of the initiative’s strategic planning committee.

“I remember, years ago, [Professor Emeritus of Visual Art] Richard Fishman saying, ‘We have all these incredible arts departments — let’s unify some of what we do,’” Field said. “Then he said, ‘Maybe we should make something more of this.’ Then came the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, and then came the BAI, which is now this amazing home for the arts at Brown.”

As she settled into her new leadership role, Field shared her thoughts about the arts on College Hill, the importance of collaboration across fields of study and her vision for the future of the BAI.

Q: Why did you choose to transfer to Brown years ago? And why did you come back to Brown to teach?

Before I came to Brown, I had been working professionally in Paris and in Marseille as an assistant director in theater. I was having a wonderful time, but I realized I should probably finish college while I was still college age. So I transferred to Brown midyear and did an independent concentration with Karen T. Romer [dean of the College at the time] who helped me put together my extremely eclectic interests into something that was manageable and turned out to be very formative. I have spent almost my entire writing life continuing interrogations I started then — looking at how science narrates our lives in ways that can be interesting but also problematic, for example.

Then, I came back as a graduate student in my early 30s — and about four or five years later, I was hired as a faculty member. I felt Brown was there to make everything possible for me. I didn’t want my college experience to be completely lecture-and-paper based, so I appreciated that I was able to take a critical approach to history in the artistic way I wanted to.

Q: Many people might associate the BAI with performing and visual arts more than with literary arts. What can your literary arts perspective lend to the initiative?

As you can tell from my undergraduate concentration, I’ve always been very experimental and interdisciplinary. I don’t think you can ever look at a story from just one point of view. I think that perspective, rather than my experience as a writer, is the piece I bring to the BAI. The BAI’s mission is to support cutting-edge arts and facilitate collaboration across disciplines, and I fully embody that mission.

Q:Why is collaboration across disciplines important in the arts?

I think “interdisciplinary” can be a buzzword that gets overused. But people who are radically interdisciplinary — people who are bringing together the legacies of different traditions and synthesizing them into something truly new — are important because they challenge conventions and thinking. They change our perspective. I just fundamentally believe that it’s important to make space for that kind of interdisciplinarity, in the arts and outside of the arts.

Q: What’s your vision for the BAI as you begin in the role of director?

This is a period of intense change for the BAI. One exciting new development is that we are in the process of hiring an artistic director. This will be a person who is able to tap into the most influential and interesting artistic talent from around the world, bringing them here to work with students and faculty and to create their own work here.

I think we’ll also see an increase in opportunities for students and faculty to make more work in our spaces — both the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts and the new Performing Arts Center . I want artists in the Brown community to get the support they need, whether it’s physical space or technology training or something else, to think expansively and make work.

I’m also invested in bringing more research-based art to campus: filmmaking, installation art, activist art and public-space art. I want to spotlight local and international artists who are making this type of work, because I very much appreciate how it can start important conversations about complicated topics.

Q: What role can the arts play in academic inquiry?

I think it’s been well shown that the creative process is portable across the curriculum and that exposure to the arts helps people reflect not only on themselves but also on the wider world. The practice of art, the process of making art, is like having an encounter with the unknown. It teaches people to never stop thinking like a beginner and asking those fundamental questions.

Equally important is the exposure to cutting-edge art, even for those who aren’t participating in making it.  When people are able to have those encounters with working artists from diverse backgrounds, it enhances the campus conversation.

Q: What role can the BAI play in the Providence community?

There are many local groups I’m interested in collaborating with. We already have important partnerships, including with FirstWorks, and I think the BAI could facilitate even more visibility for local artists through increased collaborations.

I think the Providence arts scene benefits from being out of the national and international spotlight. The moment you see yourself on TV, your focus is split between the work you’re doing and the demands of commercial audiences. I think that Providence, maybe because it incubates such a genuine, diverse art scene, is in uninhibited dialogue with the world.

Q: Which BAI spring events are you looking forward to?

Andrew Schneider is bringing a fascinating performance piece this spring; it's going to be an opportunity for people to see something very theatrical and challenging and interesting.

We have a lot of film coming up, as we typically do in the spring. Students have worked hard to put together the Ivy Film Festival and to present premieres through Brown Motion Pictures. We’ve partnered with the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs on a new John F. Kennedy Jr. film series . We have the singer-songwriter Erin McKeown and the artist Coco Fusco coming to Brown as professors of the practice, doing workshops with students.

Q: What makes the BAI unique among university arts presenters?

I remember describing the BAI as “scrappy” in the draft of the strategic plan. I think we do an incredible job of training young artists — I mean, you see our alumni thriving in extraordinary careers — because we maintain a balance between providing support and fostering a culture of independent thinking and solution-finding. When you’re a working artist, you will more than likely have to source equipment, find your own audience, cut corners and invent creative solutions, because you don’t have unlimited resources. 

Q: And the BAI prepares students for that kind of work?

Yes, it teaches the right lessons to young artists:  You don’t wait until the perfect day. You don’t wait for the latest equipment, until you have no distraction, until you have enough money. The conditions are never going to be perfect. To learn that dogged sense of, “No matter what, the show gets made” — I think that’s important.

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Since 1968, Literary Arts at Brown University has been a creative and intellectual center for the U.S. literary avant-garde. Along with a handful of other writing programs nationwide, Brown provides a home for innovative writers of fiction, poetry, digital language arts and cross-disciplinary. Established in the mid-1960s by poet, translator and critic Edwin Honig, Literary Arts at Brown continues its tradition of hiring and retaining a faculty comprised of nationally and internationally known authors. Each year, the program offers 60 – 70 classes, awards the M.F.A. degree to approximately 12 graduate student writers, and confers Honors on about 35 talented seniors who will have completed the undergraduate concentration in Literary Arts.

For additional information, please visit the department's website: http://brown.edu/academics/literary-arts/home/literary-arts

LITR 0100A. Introduction to Fiction .

A workshop for first year students, introducing them to the art of writing fiction. This course is reading and writing intensive. Enrollment limited to 17. S/NC required.

LITR 0100B. Introduction to Poetry .

A workshop for first year students, introducing them to the art of writing poetry. This course is reading and writing intensive. Enrollment limited to 17. S/NC required.

LITR 0105A. Fiction, An Introduction .

A workshop for first year students and sophomores, introducing them to the art of writing fiction. This course is reading and writing intensive and will investigate the component parts of the story through review of various literary traditions. Enrollment limited to 17. S/NC required.

LITR 0110A. Fiction I .

A workshop for students who have little or no previous experience in writing fiction. Enrollment limited to 17 per section. This course is limited to undergraduates. S/NC.

LITR 0110B. Poetry I .

A workshop for students who have little or no previous experience in writing poetry. Enrollment limited to 17 per section. This course is limited to undergraduates. S/NC.

LITR 0110C. Playwriting I (TAPS 0100) .

Interested students must register for TAPS 0100 .

LITR 0110D. Digital Language Art I .

Project-oriented workshop for writers, visual/sound artists, filmmakers and programmers who wish to explore digital media techniques. No experience working in this field (or with computer programming) required. You'll learn through doing, reading, talking and collaborating on works in various traditions. Enrollment limited to 17. S/NC.

LITR 0110E. Screenwriting I .

Screenwriting I introduces the fundamentals of short-form screenwriting through viewings, readings, exercises and assignments. Areas of particular focus include the short as a fully developed and distinctive work of art; visual storytelling, pacing and flow; effective screenwriting techniques, optimizing every word; articulating your personal voice and vision; creating structures that best suit your content and intentions. In class, we will review your writing, lookbooks and group presentations; view and discuss short films; discuss readings; and do writing exercises. Assigned readings include theory, essays, treatments and screenplays. Films will also be assigned for viewing outside of class. This course is limited to undergraduates. S/NC. Enrollment limited to 17.

LITR 0110H. Digital & Cross-Disciplinary Language Arts 1 .

Project-oriented workshop for writers and language artists who want to integrate practices from other disciplines as they devise, compose, and make their work. Those with little or no prior interdisciplinary or digital media experience are welcome. Learning is through making, reading, discussion, group projects, collaboration, and research presentations Enrollment limited to 17. S/NC.

LITR 0200Z. Faking It: Literature in the Age of the Hoax .

How is society simultaneously constructed and undermined by the persistence of fakes? With its cousins the hoax and the forgery, the fake plays the straw man in much of political, religious, and philosophical discourse, but the fake’s insistence on re-conceiving notions of originality and purity is more substantial. Pursuing a definition of the fake, we will consider its many forms in contemporary society alongside novels that parody and complicate the history of these particular deceptions. Authors include: Borges, Bolano, Ishiguro, Byatt, and McCarthy. Enrollment limited to 17.

LITR 0210A. Fiction Writing II .

Topics often include stylistic matters related to tone and point of view, and structural matters like controlling switches in time. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all intermediate workshops. Enrollment limited to 17. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 0210B. Poetry Writing II .

Emphasis is placed on verse strategies, meter, rhythm, imagery and rhyme. Writing includes frequent exercises in various poetic traditions. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all intermediate workshops. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 0210C. Playwriting II (TAPS 0200) .

Interested students must register for TAPS 0200 .

LITR 0210D. Digital Language Art II .

Project-oriented workshop for writers, visual/sound artists, filmmakers, and programmers wishing to explore techniques for effective and innovative use of text in digital media. Topics include hypertext narrative, kinetic poetry, and recombinant and computer-generated texts. Collaboration encouraged. Work sample (writing, programming, website) due on first day of semester. Enrollment limited to 17. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 0210E. Screenwriting II .

Emphasis is placed on filmic devices, such as dialogue, voice-over, montage and time. Writing includes frequent exercises. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all intermediate workshops. This course is limited to undergraduates. Enrollment limited to 17. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 0310A. Poetry in Service to Schools and the Community .

We shall be reading, writing and talking about poetry and letting this medium reflect back on other artistic practices -- what it means to live, work & think (in) this way; another key component will be an engagement with community practice through bringing poetry to local schools, a direct personal and enlightening exchange of enlightening ideas and experience. Participants will work independently, in groups, in classes (including this one); you produce, and work with others to produce, art individually as well as communally; you are the gaffer, you are also, and simply, a member of the guild. This feels more like a teacher's enterprise, though I call it, simply, community practice-- what happens when people just put themselves in the position to give their gifts, while allowing, at the same time, others to give equally of themselves. Limited to 17. S/NC. Permission will be granted by the instructor after the first class session.

LITR 0310B. City/Spaces: An Introduction to Psychogeography .

Psychogeography is an artistic discipline concerned with the subconscious ways in which we respond to and interact with the physical environment of the city. This course will focus on the intersection of psychogeography and text-both narrative and non-narrative- and the possibilities for walking to inform text and narrative.

LITR 0310C. Ethnic Writing (ETHN 0300) .

Interested students must register for ETHN 0300 .

LITR 0310D. Imagining the City: Visions from Film and Literature .

This course will look at representations of urban space both in films and fiction, and through the lens of critical writings on the intersections between city space, architecture, film, and narrative. How do cities affect us aesthetically and emotionally? How have film and fiction examined, reinvented and revolutionized urban space in the twentieth century? What is the future of cities? These are some of the questions we'll address through readings, screenings, and discussion. As a class we will do weekly creative writing exercises inspired by the films and designed to explore the ways in which poetic space might be evoked through text.

LITR 0310E. Making the Written Word .

While our primary focus will be on language, we shall explore its relationship to sound, video, and performance. Although no prerequisites are required, students should be competent in visual and language arts — we shall work with equal sensitivity in both. Works created shall interrogate the space between image and text as a single composite medium, therefore illuminating advantages and pitfalls of each. We'll consider works by Linda Montano, Jenny Holzer, Lyn Hejinian, Susan Sontag. Required lab sessions in new technologies (Final Cut Pro, Audacity, Logic, Processing) will provide skills necessary to produce conceptually driven works of digital language art. Enrollment limited to 17.

LITR 0310F. Visual Poetry .

This interdisciplinary workshop explores the visual possibilities of language. Considering the page as a starting point, we'll create new works between writing and visual art. Through researching early writing systems, concrete poetry, asemic writing and contemporary works, students will gain a deeper understanding of their own practices. We'll examine the works of Dieter Roth, Carl Andre, Sol Lewitt, Aram Saroyan, Kenneth Goldsmith, Rosmarie Waldrop and more. All visual media welcome. "[Blank space on a page means] freedom. The possibility of anything happening. Every mark on that paper is an interruption, an insertion into a kind of peace." -Susan Howe

LITR 0310G. COMIX: Words + Image .

In this course we will be exploring the expansive genre of comics. You will learn how to read, analyze, compare, and create/write sequential art. This will be done through a variety of readings, in class exercises, discussions, and assignments. We will apply these reading and writing forms to the digital.

LITR 0310H. Art of Film: An Introduction to Filmmaking .

This is a course in the art of film writing, directing, editing picture and sound, and producing, be it narrative or avant-garde. Students will engage the theory and practice of the art of filmmaking via readings, viewings, writings, and making their own films. S/NC required.

LITR 0310I. Exploding the Book: An Introduction to Hybrid + Cross-Disciplinary Poetry .

How might poetry exist in three dimensions? In four? How might it interact with images? With sound? With performance? This course invites students to reimagine the ways in which human beings experience text. Exploding The Book is both an introduction to hybrid/cross-disciplinary poetry—poetry intersected with other media including image, sound, video, etc.—as well as a writing workshop. Students will be introduced to hybrid poets and text-based visual artists challenging the possibilities for where and how text exists. Additionally, students will develop a hybrid and experimental writing practice of their own.

LITR 0310J. The Voice of Text .

The Voice of Text will explore the voice as mediator among text, sound and performance. The vocal instrument will be thoughtfully investigated with examination of extreme and unorthodox iterations of voice/text/sound, including: castrati repertoire, extended technique ranging from Diamanda Galas to black metal, coded shortwave radio transmissions, electronic vocal synthesis and the ecstatic speech of glossolalia. Additionally, voiced text will be given historical context through fiction and poetry, film, theater and music. Through individual and collaborative projects, students will explore a variety of techniques and technologies, harnessing the expressive potential of the voice across a wide variety of disciplines.

LITR 0310K. The Web Video: Narrative Installed in the Screen .

Godard once joked, “I have a secret ambition…to be put in charge of the French newsreel.” He imagined a digestible form of consumption that blended text with pictures, documentation with advertisement, intimacy with objectification. And now we have it. The computer allows access to thousands of newspapers, also television shows, social media sites, email, reddit, first person shooting games, everything really. Looking at artists like Hito Steyerl, Jenny Holzer, Harun Farocki, Young Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Trinh Minh Ha, Sondra Perry, Angela Washko, Douglas Kearney, Xu Bing and others, we’ll explore narrative in the on screen video format.

LITR 0310L. Coding for Language: An Introduction .

In a time when almost every word and sentence will become digitized by computers, language becomes programmable. In this project centered workshop we are going to explore what possibilities, questions and challenges programming bring to language, especially in reading and writing practices. For students who are interested in language, coding, poetics, and creative writing, you’ll learn through doing, reading, discussing and collaborating on works in programmable media. Some previous experience with programming is desirable. If you have a basic understanding of programming and are willing to spend more time to code for language, this course is for you.

LITR 0310M. Refusing Objecthood: Web-Based Language Art as Site .

This studio course addresses the history and practice of web-based language art, or literature/art made for and inseparable from the web. Web-based language art is space/place/landscape/setting/site; it is not held or beheld, but filled and inhabited. We focus on what this means for web-based language artists, especially those who occupy bodies that have not historically tended to own or control physical sites. Supplementary readings consider other site-building or site-altering language art practices and the materiality of the internet. Final projects will be web-based language artworks, for which participants are encouraged but not required to learn to code for the web.

LITR 0310N. Machine Learning and Language Arts: Approaches to AI Art Practice .

We'll consider the question: what does the rise of so-called artificial intelligence mean for the language and for arts practice in general? Contemporary artists in fields as diverse as music, architecture, cinema, poetry and painting use machine learning tools to support their work. Through technical workshops, project critiques and critical discussions, we'll grapple with the anxiety and catharsis AI tools can bring to the arts. Students will be expected to work on projects using multiple machine learning tools. No coding experience is required for this course. A writing sample will be due in the front hall of the Literary Arts building (located at 68 1/2 Brown Street) by 4 pm on the first day of classes. Interested students should also complete the survey here: https://www.brown.edu/academics/literary-arts/survey-litr-0210-310-and-1010-workshops.

LITR 0310O. Narrative Nonfiction .

This is a class in crafting engrossing and essential stories. True stories need to be told, and deserve to be told well. What’s the difference between story and subject? How can narrative and careful structuring maximize the impact of investigative reporting? How do you properly pace a longform story? How do you pitch, report, outline, and edit one? And, most importantly, why do you write it in the first place? Class meetings will include a magazine-style editorial meeting, discussing weekly pitches and, later, story drafts followed by a discussion of reading that explores various approaches to structure, voice, and genre.

LITR 0310P. WIND in the CANE: Or, poetry in the “black outdoors” .

Are poems set on urban streets landscape poems? Can a poem shot through with mistrust of, and alienation from, the land and other natural bodies constitute a nature poem? How do our notions of dwelling in the body inform our notions of dwelling on land? In this cross-disciplinary workshop, we’ll consider what informs our prevailing views of the natural world; we’ll investigate the language we use to describe the spaces we inhabit, haunt, cross over, and take as refuge; and we’ll attune to the body and its material culture, which shapes our experience and enables our relationship to the land.

LITR 0310Q. Speculative Digital Utopias in a Time of Planetary Crisis .

'Social distancing' has driven us to spend more of our waking life in the virtual world than ever before. In class, we will confront the “reality of the virtual” in our present moment and make active steps to decolonize our imaginations and cultivate new ways of relating to reality, technology and the future. How do our avatars and virtual ecosystems reflect / parallel / interact with our physical reality? How can critical fabulation open portals to possible futures? What roles can language, imagination and art play as guiding forces toward a decolonized utopian future? Students will explore these questions through readings, conversation, experimentation and play. Over the semester, students will create several works of language driven digital art using sound, video, installation + networked media.

LITR 0310R. The Earned First Person .

Writing in the first person is a familiar mode for many of us. But when does it add to a reported, longform story and when does it detract from it? This is emphatically not a memoir class. In fact, at every turn, we will interrogate whether the first-person is merited. The first person can be used to bear witness or take us on a quest or build an argument. Other times, it’s navel-gazing and gratuitous. We’ll focus on how to use the first-person to create engrossing, well-structured narratives with unique perspectives.

LITR 0310S. The Earned First Person .

LITR 0310T. Metaforaging .

To forage is to explore and gather that which supports and sustains you, without depleting the nuanced systems that provide them. In this language art workshop, we will move through multi-disciplinary practices to understand how our worlds interrelate, how our senses extend and entangle each other. We will tune our attention to the abundance around us, drawing materials from personal and natural sources across disciplines into our language art practices. This course will stay within the poetic while moving from the literal – foraging for experiences and objects in our environment – to the speculative. Learning is through writing, noticing, sharing, making, reading, discussion, collaboration, and research presentations. Enrollment limited to 17. S/NC.

LITR 0310U. Hydropoetics: writing with and as water .

This poetry workshop takes its inspiration from the word hydrography. Etymologically, hydrography means water writing. As a science, hydrography concerns itself with surveying bodies of water especially for the purpose of safe navigation. We will consider ourselves as literary hydrographers, surveying a number of hydroscapes and returning the word to its parts. We will think, read, experience, and write about water in many dimensions and scales and we will attempt to write with and as water, as watery bodies. Together we will encounter the work of many theorists of water, including selections from poets, hydrofeminists, ecocritics, urbanists, sound artists and others. We will conduct written and auditory experiments grounded in oceans, rivers, lakes, pools, and ponds of our choosing.

LITR 0310V. Spaces and Places .

Project-oriented workshop for language artists who want to integrate practices from a variety of disciplines as they devise, compose, and make their work. Those with little or no prior interdisciplinary or digital media experience are welcome and encouraged to take this course. Learning may be through making, reading, discussion, group projects, collaboration, and research presentations. Enrollment limited to 17. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 0310W. Digital Utopias In A Dystopian Time Of Planetary Crisis .

What roles can language, imagination and art play as guiding forces toward a decolonized utopian future? In this class, we will confront the reality of our present moment and make steps to decolonize our imaginations and cultivate new ways of relating to technology and the future. How do our avatars and virtual ecosystems reflect / parallel / interact with our physical reality? How can critical fabulation open portals to possible futures? Students will explore these questions in depth, through readings, engaged conversation, experimentation and play. Over the semester, students will produce the digital artifacts of their own speculative utopias by creating language driven digital art using sound, video and new media. Students should expect weekly assignments and readings that will nourish a final project.

LITR 0310X. Experiments in Film and Poetry: An Interdisciplinary Workshop .

In this interdisciplinary creative workshop, we will explore the interplay of film and poetry. Students will gain insight into a variety of strategies and concerns of artists, writers and filmmakers who work with images and language (be it text or voiced) in tandem. Some topics of exploration will include montage theory and collage, essay films and essay poems, text- based images, image-based texts, experimental documentary poetics, neo-benshi works and collaborative processes. Each week, we will watch and read relevant work and discuss it together in class. Students will also have individual and collaborative creative prompts of their own, and a chance to receive feedback on their work. Students with existing creative practices and video editing skills are encouraged to apply, but no prior experience is required, only a desire to engage, experiment and create in community.

LITR 0310Z. Oblique Strategies: Process, Chance and Play in Cross-Disciplinary Literary Artmaking .

Building on the musician Brian Eno’s concept of “oblique strategies”, this course will introduce students to a variety of tactics to shift the burden of literary and artistic creation away from the conscious ego and towards a constraint and process-based approach. The first part of the course will focus on self-knowledge as a foundation for artistic practice, using generative writing exercises to generate raw material for subsequent projects. In the second part, we will introduce concepts of instructional, constraint and process-based art and experiment with a variety of strategies to decenter the creative ego with the goal of generating first drafts in a free and unselfconscious manner. The final part of the course will focus on constraint-based strategies for importing that same freedom into the editing process.

LITR 0311A. Juicy Carcasses, Abundant Futures: Detritus as Nourishment .

This course challenges students to listen to the wisdom of scavengers, and transform that which is discarded. It explores how those in the margins can reconstruct new worlds from the still active, reeking remains of (post)coloniality. It considers carefully Homi Bhabha’s idea of the Third Space, and Fred Moten’s idea of Noise and fugitive listening, that calls us to cease resisting dominant hegemonies with the tools of their making, and instead find each other outside of the binary of oppression/resistance, within a space of our own invention. This course explores what we can pick at from these juicy carcasses of colonialism and its many forms, and what dreams and futures we can imagine with them, all the while drawing inspiration from non-human detritivores.

LITR 0311B. Image Text Interval: Experiments in Film and Poetry .

Our explorations in this interdisciplinary creative workshop will center around the interplay of image and text in film and video. We will tend to the space between words, between images, the movements from one to another, what’s alive in the cracks. How might poetic devices be transposed to image sequences in film? How can film theory inspire our writing? What are the myriad ways text, voice and the moving image can layer and entwine? This project-based workshop is for students interested in interdisciplinary practices that live and migrate between poetry and the moving image. Together we will consider essay films, cinepoetry, video art, and neo-benshi performance. We will learn about filmmakers, artists and writers who engage creatively with poetics, text and voice in moving image works such as Sky Hopinka, Suneil Sanzgiri, Mona Hatoum, Trinh T Minh-ha, Jordan Lord, Wu Tsang, and Douglas Kearney.

LITR 0311C. Little Landscapes: A Workshop in Very Short Fiction .

Daily writing and weekly reading, to inform and inspire. We’ll practice and reflect on skills necessary to very short fiction, such as, but not limited to, compression, constraint, understatement, particulars over broad strokes. We’ll consider how a very short story can be a trickster: a whole meal dressed as a snack. Great focus will be placed on image, feeling, moments, titles, words, sentences, openings and endings, paragraphs, transitions, voice, style, rhythm, and breath, among other things. We’ll defamiliarize and decenter ourselves in relation to stories. We’ll test what a story can be, what it can hold. Experimentation, fun, and play will be foregrounded. Much of what we’ll practice and explore are necessary to all forms of writing. It’s all the same. It’s all paying attention.

LITR 0311D. Experiments in Storytelling: Essays, Art, and Games .

We tell stories everyday, we construct narratives for events, for our understandings of the people around us, for our own identities. Who are we and how do we fit into the world? Storytelling is at the heart of our human experience and it is unlimited in the forms it can take. This online seminar will explore a selection of storytelling traditions, both in and out of the creative writing space. Students will investigate the strategies employed by writers, artists, playwrights, game designers and will test these strategies out for themselves in their own storytelling. The aim is not for students to prioritize one style or strategy, but to approach the act of creation with a philosophy of radical play and discovery. No prerequisites required.

LITR 0311E. On Photographic Remembrance .

“On Photographic Remembrance” is an introductory course to mixed-media fiction writing. This course will delve into how archival photographs are a medium for experimental storytelling and lost personal histories. Students will develop their analytical skills of historical and “found” photographs from the Prelinger Archives, a public resource containing thousands of film footage and photographs featuring never-before released war documentation, 60’s televised films, and home videos. Students will use this resource as inspiration for their own speculative fiction: how can the interplay of photography and prose represent fragmented time and memory? We will explore how various contemporary authors, multimedia artists, and filmmakers use structural, visual, and literary devices to imbue their works with a sense of both realism and mystery.

LITR 0311F. Geopoetics: reading+writing rocks, geo-glyphs, tectonic gestures .

This workshop engages in cross-disciplinary language arts via geologic matter. How might reading, writing, and making with stone extend what Ursula K. LeGuin calls, “the meter of eternity”? How might fossil, tectonic plate, and planet show us new spatial and temporal scales of inscription, elegy, and literary possibility beyond the Anthropocene? In this course, we will create language art projects both on and off the page, with the options to work with digital media, artist books, and multi-sensory art works. Through reading, journaling, and projects, we will engage geologic and geopolitical themes, beginning with ecopoetics, moving through extractivism, and extending into the politics of territory markers and lines. Students with all amounts of writerly and artistic experience are welcome.

LITR 0311X. Other Ghosts .

From personal and national memory, we mourn, witness and become implicated in its retelling. Is it possible to mold language into the shape of usefulness, as Claudia Rankine attempted, and can we shape a memory, or life, into Albert Murray’s elegant form? We shall consider how genre and medium can augment personal and political stories through weekly reading discussions, workshops. We shall read and discuss interdisciplinary literature (which combines genres of poetry, fiction, criticism, memoir), visual arts (including cinema, sculpture, installation), music and short essays. We’ll make use of the workshop environment to build a practice of constructive feedback and revision as students develop their individual voice. Students will submit a piece for workshopping at least twice in the semester, and submit a final project on the last day of class. Students are encouraged to work in various mediums.

LITR 0311Y. Experiments in Storytelling: Essays, Art, and Games .

We tell stories everyday, we construct narratives for events, for our understandings of the people around us, for our own identities. Who are we and how do we fit into the world? Storytelling is at the heart of our human experience and it is unlimited in the forms it can take. This online seminar will explore a selection of storytelling traditions, both in and out of the creative writing space. Students will investigate the strategies employed by writers, artists, playwrights, game designers and will test these strategies out for themselves in their own storytelling. The aim is not for students to prioritize one style or strategy, but to approach the act of creation with a philosophy of radical play and discovery.

LITR 0510A. Masters and Servants .

We will consider the relationship between servants and masters as portrayed in fiction and films. We shall examine the basic relation of servitude to sovereignty, extrapolating to the broader power dynamics of two-person relationships. Beginning with the Hegelian dialect of the master and the servant, and building as well on a philosophical framework provided by Nietzche, Kojeve and Bataille, we shall look at the complexities of the relationship between masters and servants, exploring the psychological, social and ethical dimensions of two-person relationships that value each person differently. We shall focus on issues of class and power and look at literature and film in which there are explorations of several complicated manifestations of servitude and mastery: overlaps into gender power dynamics and fetishism, power dynamic reversals both to comic and tragic effect, and questions of boundaries and violation of social propriety and human communication. Core texts will include work from Ishiguru, Wodehouse, D.H. Lawrence, Miabeau, Richardson, Bronë, and Stanley Crawford, and film texts will include Joseph Losey's The Servant and Luis Bunuel's Diary of a Chambermaid .

LITR 0510B. Into the Machine .

Starting from Turing's work on artificial intelligence, we shall examine the cultural and artistic ramifications of the rise of the machine, using Marx and Walter Benjamin to provide a framework. We will look at how machines generate anxiety, with special emphasis on robots, puppets and automatons; and we shall also consider utopian and dystopian images of machines, and visions of near and distant futures. Finally we will look at authors who utilize machine models of operation to generate artistic work. Authors and filmmakers include: Capek, E.T.A. Hoffman, Asimov, Lem, Breton, Redonet, Fritz Lang, Chaplin, Tati. Enrollment limited to 20 first year students.

LITR 0510C. The Pleasures of the Text .

Enter the radiance of literature, music and film through devotional readings, viewings and listening experiences that will result in a series of weekly creative writing experiments. Dissolve into a narrative or sound or image the way a writer might and return from these experiences inspired and changed. Be prepared for the awe and wonder that only art can afford. Texts may include stories, poems and/or novels by Adler, Baldwin, the Bible, Coetzee, Cortazar, Gluck, Muller, Munro, Morrison, Pancake, Rankine, Schwartz, Wolf and others. Films by Akerman, Anderson, Kurosawa and Herzog. Music by classical, jazz and hip-hop artists.

LITR 0510D. Why Don’t We Fall In Love? .

How do we fall in love? Why? The title of our seminar was inspired by the 2002 summer pop-hit, written and produced by Rich Harrison, and famously performed by Amerie Rogers. Through poetry, film, and music, we will be critical, clinical, and sometimes implicated observers of the dynamics which structure erotic desire, the selfless (or selfish) ambition of love, and its representations.

LITR 0510E. Fiction v. Non-Fiction .

In bookstores, “Fiction” and “Non-Fiction” are separate, even antithetical, categories. In the minds of writers, though, they exist on a continuum. “Fiction” is heavily informed by fact; “Non-Fiction” applies the techniques of fiction. In this course, we will study authors who deftly employ both forms, in order to ask: when does a writer choose to shape his/her/their material as fiction or non-fiction? What are the benefits of each form? How are authors trying to break and merge these categories?

LITR 0610A. Unpublishable Writing .

This workshop explores writing projects which do not fit into conventional avenues of print publication (i.e. books). Through a series of prompted artistic projects we will explore how writing can interweave in new relationships with time, materials, sequence, procedural approaches, performance, and collaboration. Independent research will support your creative projects throughout the semester. Enrollment limited to 12. S/NC.

LITR 0610B. Fiction Through Poetry .

This course is designed for poets, fiction writers, and cross-genre enthusiasts interested in looking at narrative as it occurs at the level of the sentence, even the level of the word. We will use a variety of poetic texts as well as other fractured content as a means to think about fiction and the borderlands of storytelling. Students will be given weekly writing exercises. Enrollment limited to 12 first year students. S/NC.

LITR 0610C. Books By Hand .

We shall explore small press publishing and bookmaking from historical, contemporary and hands-on perspectives. Students will be asked to design and carry out small creative projects throughout the semester as well as research particular concerns in the field. Enrollment limited to 12 first year students. S/NC.

LITR 0610D. Four Performance Texts .

Performance studies is a capacious, interdisciplinary field that can traverse theater, visual art, music, literature, and dance, as well as aspects of lived life that are not necessarily considered art: ritual, sporting event, political protest. It is time-based, and thus for the most part, ephemeral. An artist may stage, orchestrate, or frame a set of behaviors, actions, events or even just intentions – they may or may not be the actual performer. Because of the embodied nature of performance, aspects of identity such as race, gender, and sexuality often play a visible role in the dynamics of the work. The documentation of performance can exist in a wide range of formats, and usually endure for much longer than the performance itself. In this course, we will engage a “deep dive” on four distinct books that document performance. We will consider them both as records of the past, as well as a vehicle loaded with possibility for future actions – and we will perform some of those actions ourselves. This course will be a combination of the study of texts, the activation of texts, and the creation of texts. Individual and group work is expected.

LITR 0610E. To Gather, To Sever, To Mix, To Turn .

This highly generative workshop’s goal is to stimulate and provide students with formal tools to develop a chapbook-length series of poems by the term’s end. Students will bring materials to be transformed through processes including but not limited to collage, erasure, and translation. Such materials could be self-generated or found, and may include journal entries, dream logs, letters, text messages, images, archival matter, and much else. As examples of procedural approaches we will read poets such as Jen Bervin, Caroline Bergvall, Lyn Hejinian, Christian Hawkey, Susan Howe, Tyehimba Jess, Tan Lin, Claudia Rankine, and Stacy Szymaszek.

LITR 0610F. Choose Your Own Adventure .

This game is lit. I mean this Lit is a game. How do the design elements of a novel resemble the design elements of a game? And to what extent have interactive [video] games been designed with novelistic conceits? Your adventure begins here, starting with what lies at the dark heart of the literary adventure genre (Defoe, Conrad, Behn). We’ll sojourn at contemporary indie video games (Undertale, Walking Dead, Broken Age, Gone Home), along the way analyzing how “choice” is utilized to build reciprocal fictions. We will also undertake semester-long projects—creating our own “Choose Your Own Adventure”s.

LITR 0710. Writers on Writing Seminar .

Offers students an introduction to the study of literature (including works from more than one genre) with special attention given to a writer's way of reading. This course will include visits to the course by contemporary writers who will read to the class and talk about their work. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

LITR 0710R. Poetry and Science (ENGL 0710R) .

Interested students must register for ENGL 0710R .

LITR 0900A. Classic Short Stories .

This course introduces you to a selection of works by important writers of the short story. We shall explore the richness and diversity of short fiction through close reading and discussion, affording you an appreciation of the short story in general and of our writers' countries and histories in particular. Our focus will be on authorial strategies and themes explored. Artistic and political movements will be introduced as they impact the works. Furthermore, you will learn the appropriate terminology as tools for textual and critical analysis. Finally, this course will to develop your capacity for self-expression.

LITR 0900B. How to Win the Nobel Prize in Literature .

The history of the world’s most famous literary prize, the Nobel Prize in Literature, is one of scandal, secrecy, and prestige. Does the Nobel Prize really reward writers who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind"? What might the Nobel Prize teach us about reading and writing in our contemporary moment? In this seminar we will read texts from the most recent Nobel laureates: Kazuo Ishiguro, Olga Tokarczuk, Peter Handke, Louise Glück, and Abdulrazak Gurnah. We will examine how these diverse authors engage in creative writing and world-making through topics like migration, history, myth, culture, and ethnicity. We will also think broadly about the politics and value of literary prizes, world literature, translation, and the global literary marketplace.

LITR 0999. Graphic Novels and Comic Masterworks .

Focused on the influence of graphic novels and comic art, this course examines graphic novels and comic art from seminal texts like Art Spiegleman's Maus through a range of mainstream and independent comics from Marjane Satrapi, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, David B., Lynda Barry, Daniel Clowes, Frank Miller, and many others, including graphic memoir, reportage, and Indie and DIY zines. The course explores image and language in collaboration, seeking a better understanding of this influential genre. Assignments are critical and creative, both individual and collaborative, and will involve daily reading and writing assignments. Enrollment limited to 20.

LITR 1000. The Arts Workshop for Practice and Practice-Oriented Research .

This collaborative course will provide a forum for discussing in-progress creative research and practice. Offered jointly by the Brown Arts Initiative and Brown’s arts departments, the weekly workshop will host an interdisciplinary group of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. Each participant will apply with a specific creative practice/research project to be workshopped and developed during the course of the semester. In the semester following the seminar, participants will have access to production assistance from the BAI for further project development. The course requires an online application process, and successful applicants with be provided with instructor permission to enroll.

LITR 1010A. Advanced Fiction .

The writing of short stories or longer works in progress in regular installments, along with appropriate exercises and reading assignments. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all advanced workshops. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1010B. Advanced Poetry .

Course work includes a body of exercises, close reading of poetry, workshop conversations and conferences. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all advanced workshops. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1010C. Advanced Playwriting (TAPS 1500H) .

Interested students must register for TAPS 1500H .

LITR 1010D. Advanced Digital Language Arts .

An advanced writing working for which participants produce, individually or in collaborative arrangements, a significant work of language-driven, digitally-mediated art in networked and programmable media. This work will be given historical and critical context, as participants become more aware of what it is they are doing when they use digital systems to write, or when they create instruments for and of writing. Throughout the course — and especially before final projects become the focus — there will be seminar-style reading and discussion: readings from other works of digital language art and from selected critical writing in the field.

LITR 1010E. Advanced Screenwriting .

Screenwriting for feature-length and episodic works. Participants should already have experience writing short screenplays and be prepared to develop a longer piece. See the Literary Arts Department website for course entry procedures for all advanced workshops. Work sample and instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1010F. Advanced Translation .

Translation draws from many fields including linguistics, comparative literature, literary studies, anthropology, cultural studies, cognitive science, and creative writing. While we consider different theories and approaches to translation, students will embark on a semester-length translation project. Expect to read and energetically discuss readings, to give a presentation on your ongoing translation, and to write a critical essay and numerous translation exercises on your way toward completing a manuscript in translation (the length of which will be determined by the work itself and an agreement between professor and student). Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1010G. Writing3D .

An advanced experimental workshop for writing in immersive 3D, introducing text, sound, spatial poetics, and narrative movement into Brown's Legacy Cave (now house in the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts) with links to the YURT (Yurt Ultimate Reality Theater in the Center for Computation and Vixualization). An easy-to-learn and easy-to-use application allows non-programmers to create projects on laptops and then to run them in immersive 3D audiovisuality without the necessity for specialist support. Broadly interdisciplinary, the course encourages collaboration between students with different skills in different media, who work together to discover a literary aesthetic in artificially rendered space.

LITR 1010H. Advanced Digital & Cross-Disciplinary Language Arts .

Project-oriented workshop for writers and language artists working to integrate practices from other disciplines as they devise, compose, and make their work. Recommended for students with some prior interdisciplinary practice or digital media experience. Learning is through making, reading, discussion, group projects, collaboration, and research presentations. Enrollment limited to 12. S/NC.

LITR 1011F. Literary Translation Workshop (COLT 1710C). .

Interested students must register for COLT 1710C .

LITR 1110B. American Political Drama .

What exactly is an American political play? We'll examine issues of personal freedom, community rights, and the positioning of public power. Are we different from the myths of America? Political theater enables us to see our moral choices and aspirations. From Aristophanes to Suzan-Lori Parks, we will look at various political texts while we attempt to create new approaches to the writing of American Political Theater.

LITR 1110E. Innovative Narrative .

Stereotexts: a project-driven writing workshop focused on innovative multidimensional approaches to narrative. Projects using two or more media such as print and digital formats or texts and sound, filmed text, hyperfictions, narratives with multiple voices or even multiple spaces, text installations, fictions that put contraries into play, etc., are all welcome. Writing samples and project descriptions required.

LITR 1110F. Narrative Strategies .

A course essentially geared to the creative and critical writer interested in experimenting with some of the narrative structures suggested by the great films. To include films of Akerman, Antonioni, Eisenstein, Hou Hsiao, Hsien, Goddard, marker, Tarkovsky and others and texts by Duras, Sebald and Vittorini. Instructor permission required.

LITR 1110G. Narrative Voice: Fact and Fiction .

No description available.

LITR 1110J. The Short Story .

Experiments in writing; extensive reading in traditional and experimental collections of fiction in shorter forms. Writing samples of no more than ten pages should be left at 68 1/2 Brown Street on the first day of the semester. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1110L. Aspects of Contemporary Prose Practice .

Using Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus , Tayeb Saleh's The Weddingof Zein and Other Stories , Luis Bernard Honwana's We Killed Mangy Dog , and Our Sister Killjoy , this course will look at prose narrative in contemporary African Literature, for a background to general narrative practice. Among areas of special interest, the course will examine the contents and structure of the short story, not as an abbreviated novel, but as an autonomous genre. We shall also look at literature in translation, and discuss what the reader loses in the process if anything, and how much that matters, if at all. Students will be expected to work on short stories and novel chapters. Instructor permission required. Enrollment limited to 12. S/NC.

LITR 1110M. Stereotexts: Experimental Multidimensional Fiction Workshop .

A project-driven writing workshop focused on innovative multidimensional approaches to narrative. Projects using two or more media such as print and digital formats or text and sound, filmed text, hyperfictions, narratives with multiple voices or even multiple spaces, text installations, fictions that put contraries into play, etc., all are welcome submissions.

LITR 1110N. Workshop for Potential Literature .

A novel without the letter "E", 100,000-billion sonnets by permutation and texts that take the shape of a Mobius-Strip-- all this time and more, as workshop participants try their hands in writing in response to problems created by and inspired by a group of writers engaged in strange constraints and procedures. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1110O. Hybrid Texts, Hybrid Thinking .

In neither being fiction, poetry, memoir, theory, nor art writing but a crossing of these genres, the hybrid text proffers an open and complexly layered environment for engaging questions of perception, knowledge and articulation. In this course, we will study exemplary works of literature and venture briefly into visual art. Both critical and creative responses will be required.

LITR 1110P. Alternative Scriptwriting: Writing Beyond the Rules .

This course will consider various screenwriting genres and how to write against genre or extend the traditional screenwriting forms. Students applying must have already completed either a 90+ page screenplay or have taken Advanced Playwriting ( LITR 1010C ) or Advanced Screenwriting ( LITR 1010E ) at Brown. S/NC.

LITR 1110R. Performance Dimensions of Text .

Poets Theater is an online seminar/workshop in which students will read and “rehearse”/perform the poems, scripts and scores by writers who extend the possibilities of dramatic language. Modeled as an "atelier," students will explore the relationships between the performative and the printed/textual, asking how the page serves as a blueprint for sound, video, movement, and theatrical practice. Students will write “in conversation” with assigned readings by innovators such as Augusto Boal, Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozake Shange, Richard Foreman, Douglass Kearney, Tracie Morris, Cecilia Vicuna, August Wilson, Fiona Templeton, Kevin Killian, and others. As an interdisciplinary workshop, this course invites students from all backgrounds. S/NC. Instructor's permission required. Enrollment limited to 12.

LITR 1110S. Fiction into Film .

A study of various directors' attempts to transfer masterpieces of fiction into film. Concerning both genres we will ask Gertrude Stein's question: What are masterpieces, and why are there so few of them? Includes fiction by Austen, Bierce, Carter, Cowley, Doyle, Faulkner, Forster, Fowles, Kesey, Joyce, McCullers, Morrison, Nabokov, O'Connor, Thompson, Walker, Spielberg, Woolf, Yamamoto as directed by Burton, Forman, Felini, Gilliam, Huston, Jordan, Kurasawa, Lee, Potter, and others. Class and weekly screenings. Enrollment limited to 12. S/NC.

LITR 1110T. Script to Screen .

Script to Screen is an intensive production course designed for students with some proficiency in screenwriting and little to no directing or filmmaking experience. The course aims to serve as a two-way bridge, opening writing students up to possibilities for production, while also investigating how production experiences can inform future writing. Activities include shooting and editing video exercises, working with actors, and filming practice scenes. A local casting director will conduct a workshop and bring in actors for scene work. A highly acclaimed guest director will work with students over three classes, conducting an acting workshop and critiquing scene work.

LITR 1110U. Script to Screen: Fundamentals of Filmmaking .

This intensive production course is designed for students who have some proficiency in screenwriting or poetry and little to no filmmaking experience. The course aims to serve as a two-way bridge, opening screenwriting and poetry students up to the possibility of making films, while also investigating how production experiences can inform future writing projects. We will experiment with a variety of filmmaking techniques and tools to investigate the symbiotic relationships between writing and visual language. The equal importance of sound in the film viewing experience will also be explored, with students learning techniques for recording and editing multitrack soundtracks. Guest filmmakers will join us and respond to student work.

LITR 1110V. Script to Screen: Scene Work .

This intensive script development and directing workshop is designed for students who have some proficiency in screenwriting, and little to no directing experience. Basic shooting and editing skills are helpful, or will be learned in the first half of the semester. The course aims to serve as a two-way bridge, opening screenwriting students up to the possibility of directing their work, while also investigating how acting and directing experiences, and workshopping material with actors, can inform future screenwriting. Activities include learning acting and directing techniques, scene analysis, writing and revising scenes, casting and working with actors, creating a scene through improvisation, and filming practice versions of scenes. Guests will join us for workshops and final reviews.

LITR 1110W. Losing Record .

These past few years have forced us all to confront some harsh truths about our place on this planet. In this creative non-fiction course we will grapple with what it means to lose. More than just the agony of defeat, loss is a universal condition of entropic grief or enlightening relief, often as a result of forces beyond our control. We will examine first what it means to lose things, then people, and finally our place(s). We'll also explore the ways melancholy, grief, and non-attachment have been variously treated—all in effort to archive our own losing records. What can we do to keep from forgetting? And is it possible to forgive without forgetting (injury, trauma, theft)? When is it appropriate, or even desirable, to forget? In-class prompts will include transcendental meditations, journaling, and object histories.

LITR 1150A. Ecopoetics in Practice .

What we have perpetrated on our environment has certainly affected a poet's means and material, thinking and life. Can poetry embody values that acknowledge the economy of interrelationship between human and non-human realms? How might poetry register the complex interdependency that draws us into a dialogue with the world, moving beyond theme and reference? In this class, we will think-with ecoscapes, ecotones, and Animalia (ourselves included, along with our humanimal contexts), and other life and nonlife forms, via the lapping possibilities of poetic language. We will write, read, discuss, create, think, experience. Do be prepared for some “field work”. S/NC

LITR 1150B. The Foreign Home: Interdisciplinary Arts .

Project-centered workshop for exploration beyond one's "home" genre, whether in video, poetry, fiction, music, performance or visual arts. Contemporary and art-historical interdisciplinary works will ground our investigation into the tension between expertise and "beginner's mind". Collaborative and individual work expected. See general course description above for entry procedures for all special topics workshops/seminars. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1150C. Unpublishable Writing .

Before becoming the dominant form of book-marking, "the codex" meant a tree stump where criminals were tied. After examining conventions of western print culture, we will explore literary practices which are performative, sculptural, multimedia, or out-scale. Through the course is primarily for creative projects, critical research will also be expected.

LITR 1150E. Strange Attractors: Adaptations/Translations .

A workshop for students from all genres and disciplines to explore adaptation as creative process. Adaptation can be between any genres and from any source. See general course description above for entry procedures for all special topics workshops/seminars. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1150F. Home and Abroad .

This course combines seminar and workshop sessions for students with special interest in the writing of novels and short fiction. Attention will be given to the ways certain English and American writers - Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Graham Greene - have interpreted the lives of people in other and foreign cultures. These are classic examples of the meeting of insiders and outsiders in the house of fiction. Instructor permission required. Enrollment limited to 12.

LITR 1150G. Books by Hand .

As both a seminar and workshop, this course will explore small press publishing and bookmaking from historical, contemporary and hands-on perspectives. Students will be asked to design and carry out small creative projects throughout the semester as well as research particular concerns in the field. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all special topics workshop/seminars. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1150H. Latin American Poetry Live .

We focus on 18 essential poets from Latin America. If you do not weep and run naked shouting through the streets of Providence you will not have read the poems closely. Bilingualism is not a prerequisite, but all the texts are bilingual and we will consider translation issues in a way that is accessible to and engaging for everyone. Several of the poems we consider are book length magisterial works. The poems are political, erotic, domestic, colloquial, innovative, or incendiary, and sometimes all at once. This section does not require permission from instructor.

LITR 1150I. The Lyric Essay .

Advanced level workshop for graduates and undergraduates to explore the possibilities of creative nonfiction in a radical or hybrid mode. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all special topics workshop/seminars. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1150J. The Cinematic Essay .

A creative writing seminar in which we take the Essay Film as the primary inspiration for weekly writing exercises. Works by Marker, Godard, Ivens, Resnais, Varda, Akerman, Herzog, Morris, Su Friedrich, Sadie Benning and Trihn Mon-Ha to be included. Also writing by Cannetti, Gass, Handke, Cha, Hong Kingston and more. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all special topics workshop/seminars. Written permission required. S/NC. Students MUST register for the lecture section and the screening.

LITR 1150M. Short Fiction Experiments .

A course in fiction which pushes against the very definitions of stories and fictions. Using short forms, we will examine our habits and assumptions of story telling and engage in willful adventures of mind, spirit, and language. Prerequisites include a passion for trying everything and anything once. No prior writing experience needed. Written permission required.

LITR 1150N. The Novella: An Adventure in Writing .

In this workshop/seminar, we will explore the ever elusive world of the novella - how to think of this work, what the rules are, where the boundaries lay. Alongside their reading of writers such as Marguerite Dumas and Michael Ondaatje, students will embark on their own novella-writing journeys. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1150P. John Cage and Meditative Poetics .

Primarily an interdisciplinary literature course, we will experience the writing and thinking of John Cage in the context of a wider exploration of creative process with a basis in american and european interpretations of Buddhist practice and thought. We will explore the work of contemporary artists such as Bill Viola, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, as well as Samuel Beckett and others. Students in the course will be expected to write in both creative and critical modes. Instruction in basic meditation practice is recommended but optional throughout the semester. Written permission required.

LITR 1150Q. Reading, Writing and Thinking for the Stage .

Composed of contemporary dramatic literature for playwrights. Contemporary texts are studied. Use of each author's dramatic techniques, the influence of the times on his drama, his themes, the demands of market driven theater and popular art considered. Simultaneously students will write an original 60-page manuscript. Students applying must have already completed plays of 60 pages or have advanced playwriting experience. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1150R. Exemplary Ancient Fictions .

We shall discuss and examine a selection of pre-Gutenberg narratives from Gilgamesh and Genesis through Ovid and fairytales and medieval romance, with a focus on the ancient art of narrative. We shall also try our hands at exercises in the alternative fictional strategies these works suggest. Course entry based on the submission of a writing sample (and in-class writing in response to an assignment) at the first class session.

LITR 1150S. What Moves at the Margins .

A multi-genre seminar/workshop based on fiction, non-fiction and dramatic literature that has been banned or otherwise marginalized because it is critical, interrogative and alternative. Weekly writing exercises based on readings and discussions in class. A term project is required. For students who love literature. For admission, students may submit fiction, non-fiction or drama. Enrollment limited to 12. S/NC.

LITR 1150T. Foreign Home .

Project-centered workshop for exploration beyond one's "home" genre, whether in video, poetry, fiction, music, performance or visual arts. Contemporary and art-historical interdisciplinary works will ground our investigation into the tension between expertise and "beginner's mind". Collaborative and individual work expected. Instructor's permission required.

LITR 1150U. Prose City: The Making of Spatial Texts .

In this workshop/seminar, we will explore, through selected reading and writing exercises, some basic questions of "writing city": how is place captured, encompassed; how can the city emerge in language as a character, an event, as reflective space; how do we enter the city; how do we recognize its borders? Students will be asked to create a portfolio of texts for an imagined city, as well as to think through concepts such as "structure," "location," "encounter," and "identity" as they occur in the paragraph. Instructor's permission required.

LITR 1150V. The Novel in Brief .

This workshop/seminar takes the novel form on a wild ride as it investigates concepts such as compression, fragmentation, miniaturization, and sequencing in the construction of narratives. Students will be required to write their own brief novel over the course of the semester. Writing sample due at first class session. Instructor permission given after review of manuscripts. Enrollment limited to 12.

LITR 1150W. Clown Aesthetics .

Clown as literary structure and trope as well as character will be our focus. We will ask if this "clown aesthetic" exists, could exist, should or might continue to exist -- in fiction, performance, and film in particular. Clowning of all kinds considered from history, theory, literary and performing arts. Graduate and undergraduate students from all disciplines invited. This workshop course includes individual research as well as collaborative projects. Come to first class for permission. Enrollment limited to 12. S/NC.

LITR 1150X. Reading, Writing and Thinking .

We will explore various ways to engage with a work of art in order to fuel one's imagination and projects. Close textual reading of several books with writing assignments based on the readings. Writers will include Woolf, Stein, Beckett, Coetze, Kertesz and others. Writing samples due at first class session. Instructor permission given after review of manuscripts. Enrollment limited to 12. S/NC.

LITR 1150Y. Fiction Through Poetry .

This course is designed for poets, fiction writers, and cross-genre enthusiasts interested in looking at narrative as it occurs at the level of the sentence, even the level of the word. We will use a variety of poetic texts as well as other fractured content as means to think about fiction, and the borderlands of storytelling. Instructor permission required (bring a writing sample to the first class meeting). Enrollment limited to 12. S/NC

LITR 1150Z. Reading for Writers .

We will look closely and deeply and with a writer's passion and agenda to the various formal decisions used in a variety of astonishing and evocative texts with the objective of utilizing some of these strategies in weekly compositions of our own. Writers include: Aria, Berssenbrugge, Coetzee, Kertesz, Kincaid, Lispector, Mueller.

LITR 1151B. Figures of Thought .

What can you say about what can’t be said, and what form does such a saying take? From the gnostic gospels to Agamben, Yeats to Yves Bonnefoy, we'll follow these fleeting figures of thought and their messages. We will read a variety of writings from the deep past to the present. These writings will come in a variety of forms but illuminate a path ahead of the one we daily follow. Students will keep journals that respond to the world and writing and bring these as material for discussion in class. Each one will give a presentation during the term.

LITR 1151C. Virginia Woolf: Four Novels .

This is a class for writers and will entail close devotional readings of the texts and weekly writing experiments based on methods, motions, patterns, rhythms, abstractions and other narrative strategies employed by the novels. We'll read the following books by Woolf: Jacob's Room, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Between the Acts. S/NC required. Writing samples due at first class meeting.

LITR 1151D. Art of Film .

This is a course in the art of film writing, directing, editing picture and sound, and producing, be it narrative or avant-garde. Students will engage the theory and practice of the art of filmmaking via readings, viewings, writings, and making their own films. Each student will complete four films from initial conception to the final film in a collaborative environment.

LITR 1151E. Latin American Death Trip .

Death is the subject of many of the greatest (most moving, innovative, funny, haunting, political, oneiric) Latin American poems of the 20th century, from Gorostiza’s Death without End to Villaurrutia’s Nostalgia for Death to Saenz’ The Night. What particularities of culture, gender, age, faith or experience might account for the visionary clarity of death as constant companion or permeable border, etc.? What makes the poems great? Our class will read classic Latin American books in bilingual editions (so Spanish literacy is not a requirement, but we will talk about translation issues).

LITR 1151F. Choose Your Own Adventure .

LITR 1151G. Everything Emily .

This is a course that wallows in Emily Dickinson—one of the most important poets at the foundations of American poetry and, still today, one of our most exacting and most experimental practitioners. No one in the ensuing 150 years has surpassed her radical modes of expression, invention, and vision. We will engage with her poetry, her letters, her biography, and many of the works of criticism, visual art, film, and poetry that her work has inspired, as well as exploring the Dickinson collections in Brown’s Hay Library and visiting her Amherst home.

LITR 1151H. Discomfort .

Comfort is overrated! This course is an invitation to leave our comfort zones and dive into texts that invite us to rethink the way we view history, the world, fiction, writing, race relations etc. We will read recommended texts and discuss them in class. Discussions will include but not be limited to the narrative techniques employed by the writers and our response to the texts, both as readers and as writers.

LITR 1151I. Remaster + Remix .

This workshop/seminar will use the intuition, logic and esthetics of popular music forms such as punk, house, dub step, reggae and blues to delve into the complex connections between a selection of classic novels and versions of these novels retold. What tensions get reset when writers on an empire’s margin write back? What assumptions get shifted when women refocus a novel’s concerns? What are the possibilities and dangers in reconstructing classics while trying to mash them up? And why are we breathless when a stylist riffs? French Antillean notions of creolité will offer guidance. Main guide—the books.

LITR 1151J. Bob Marley: Lyrics and Legend .

Bob Marley is one of the most accomplished songwriters of all time. We're going to engage with the lyrics of this postcolonial Caribbean writer; contemplate him as a subject of memoirs, biographies and documentaries; and explore him as a figure in the creative imaginations of novelists and poets such as Marlon James and Lorna Goodison. We're also going to look at reggae as an important literary esthetic. And of course listen to a lot of his music. Special attention will be paid to the albums and singles produced under the guidance of Lee "Scratch" Perry.

LITR 1151K. Art of Assemblage: Collage, Reportage + Re-Appropriation .

In this class we will examine works of literature that challenge and re-imagine the poetic form using re-purposed text, research, fragment and image to enter into conversation with history and contemporary culture, and illuminate the every day realities of life. We’ll explore the use and effect of collage in visual work and music, and investigate how the form operates when transformed for the page through reading, class discussion, and creative writing exercises.

LITR 1151L. World Tour: Recent Poetry in Translation .

This is a reading, writing, translation, and discussion class. Commit to a vigorous combination of all four. Some translation theory will be reviewed, but the emphasis of the course is upon models of translations. Texts will include translations of books by Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Jean Fremon, Yoshimasu Gozo, Kim Hysoon, Anja Utler, Adonis, and others. Enrollment limited to 12. S/NC

LITR 1151M. Cross-Fertilizations: Text-Based Performance .

Gabrielle Civil is a conceptual and performance artists whose stated aim is to "open up space." With that in mind, the aim of this course is to open up -- and engage -- multiple spaces of language as it operates in the interstices of poetry, visual art, music, performance, shamanism, documentation, and activism. Among the texts we shall read are those by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Yoko Ono, LaTasha N. Nevada-Diggs -- through them, we shall consider how performed language can activate various forms of engagement, perception, dissemination and understanding.

LITR 1151N. Zoologic: Wild Animals in the Surveillance State .

This interdisciplinary course asks students to research and deeply engage with the current status of wild animals in various states of surveillance (either through conservation and preservation, or for entertainment), trafficked for the pet trade, or living essentially as "refugees" in the human world. Original critical research will result in creative and collaborative projects. Site visits to animal sanctuaries, and lectures from people working with animals in a number of disciplines will be featured. Selection will prioritize seniority and relevant experience (any discipline.)

LITR 1151O. Ideas of Narration Before Don Quixote .

We shall read fictional narratives (and some narrative poetry) from the first moments of preserved literature up to Don Quixote, for clues about how earlier writers thought about form and narration. Of what was narrative fashioned before “omniscience” was a relevant term? Before there was a science of psychology that could speak to the protagonists? What can we say about the diversity and unpredictability of early narrative writing, and how does that contrast with the more consistent look and feel of the nineteenth century? How can these “ancient fictions” inform an interest in narrative innovation and formal ingenuity today?

LITR 1151P. Documentary Poetics .

This course will explore 20th and 21st century documentary poetic texts to provide points of discussion and inspiration for our own investigative poetry. We’ll look at a range of works, from those confronting the legal record to those creating their own record of the infraordinary quotidian (Perec’s term), and discuss the various aesthetic, ethical, social, and procedural questions raised. Participants will be asked to develop and create their own final documentary poetry projects. Readings will include works by Reznikoff, Niedecker, Williams, M. NourbeSe Philip, C.D. Wright, Bernadette Mayer, Cole Swensen, Raúl Zurita, Anne Carson, Cristina Rivera-Garza, and many others.

LITR 1151Q. Great Adventure .

This hybrid seminar/prose workshop will take you to Antarctica, Japan, France, Cambodia, outer space—and to other places too. But much of your writing will be about yourself. Your cross-genre wandering through novels, essays, and indefinable hybrid works by a fascinating list of thinkers and stylists, will lead to questions about your own sense of place, belonging, contextual otherness, and the pleasures, powers and implications of your gaze. You'll search for answers through the medium of your own creative work—lyric essays, fictional vignettes, pictures.

LITR 1151R. Ecstatic Alphabets: Poetry by Other Means .

How to do things with words? How to do words with things? The latter is a question whose answers might prove as—if not more—compelling than its familiar inverse. Both are at the core of this course focusing on interdisciplinary works for which notions intrinsic to poetry serve as either springboard or endpoint. We will study contemporary examples as well as historical antecedents, and will experiment with producing genre-defying works that animate the written word. Among the strategies we will cover are verbivocovisual works, cut-ups and collage, sound poetry and concrete poetry, happenings, agitprop, poets theater, and dance.

LITR 1151S. Fan_Fic .

Fan fiction is a thing, right? And, let's be honest, we all secretly love this kinda thing! O, to relive those Microsoft '95 nights spent reading semi-romantic Legend of Zelda fan fiction... What compels us to reinvent the stories we're already attached to? The texts we might consider fan fiction exist on a spectrum somewhere between high literary and kitsch, between Milton and My Immortal. If not a proper genre, let's imagine that fan fiction is a particular (perhaps ancient) practice of literary mimesis. The question is whether it's possible to create a wholly original derivative.

LITR 1151T. Poetry for Healing Territories .

The texts we’ll be reading in this seminar/workshop address the will to heal and recuperate after loss. These are poets with courage enough to reclaim lost territory—and from their reclamations, we too are given permission to claim that which we’ve lost, that which has been taken, and that which is constantly pursued and harassed in us. How are these poets able to write through dissolution in a way that substantiates healing? What is gained in every/any instance of loss?

LITR 1151U. Literatura Puertorriqueña: Cruce-Ficctiones y Contra-Poemas .

The purpose of this course is to analyze the myriad ways Puerto Rico and the United States have influenced each other through literature, music, and art. In 1898, the island was ceded to the U.S. by Spain following the Spanish American war. Since then, an ongoing exchange (often one-sided) regarding the political status of the island and its people has informed a wealth of literary materials, musical hybridity, and radically avant-garde arts.

LITR 1151V. Black Box Poetics .

We live in an age when most of the language we read and write runs through proprietary digital systems we do not understand. Accordingly, this course approaches poetry in terms of code[s], data collection, overflow, opacity, and one-way mirrors. We will consider ununderstandability itself as an aesthetic property, discuss compositional strategies of selective clarity and obscurity, and use poetics to probe the unknowable. We will look closely at source code, but our purposes will be more conceptual than technical. No coding experience is required.

LITR 1151W. The Restless Desk: Hybrid Writing, Performance, Collaboration .

Immersion in a range of writing possibilities linked to performance and collaboration. Assigned readings will explore multiple genres, theory, and engage writing prompts that are ”experiments of attention”, working with voice, instrumentation, movement, visuals, improvisation. We will invoke “documentary poetics” as a method that engages inquiry and research and consider historical and contemporary literary performance practices. Students will design semester-long creative projects out of these multiple trajectories. Several guest musicians, performers, writers will be visiting. We will have use of the University’s recording studio and prepare a final class performance.

LITR 1151X. Interdisciplinary Arts Workshop: Translation of Concept .

Art-making is an act of translation – a thought, process, question, object, declaration, desire, system, or intention is filtered through the artist and subsequently finds new existence in the form of art. This project-centered workshop is a cross-genre exploration of that filter, where participants working in differing genres will be asked to engage a wide range of materials to “translate” into their art-making process. Please be prepared to write, dance, sing, mix, draw, ask, reach, and fail, in and out of your comfort zone. Individual and collaborative work expected. For writers, dancers, architects, musicians, painters, digital artists, “non-artists.” Written permission required.

LITR 1151Y. Against Genre .

An experimental workshop in creative writing hybridized with other forms--not only literary work that does not adhere to traditional genres, like prose-poetry, but writing that includes video, or music, or collage, and which includes practices like appropriation and non-traditional distribution. Including weekly reading assignments (Gabrielle Civil, Yoko Ono, Jack Halberstam, Claudia Rankine, Kate Durbin, Rick Moody, Mary-Kim Arnold, Shelly Jackson, and others), weekly writing prompts, one oral presentation.

LITR 1151Z. Paysagisme and the Art of Eco-Responsibility .

Though the French word paysagisme is usually translated as "landscaping," "landscape design," or "landscape architecture," the field also incorporates many land-based issues, including urban planning, public space use, sustainable agriculture, land reclamation, botany, ecology; also, it has provided a pronounced aesthetic element in garden and park design, and overlaps with late 20th-century and contemporary art movement known as land art. This course seeks to make this alternative way of viewing the environment available to students at Brown, emphasizing the way that paysagisme and its inclusive gesture of bringing art, aesthetics, and land use together, fosters new modes of ecological responsibility. This intensive half-credit course begins half-way through the semester, starting on October 25. Students MUST register by the deadline for adding a class; the course still operates within the academic calendar and students will not be able to attend class prior to registering for the course. Contact the instructor with any questions.

LITR 1152A. Survey of the Historic Avant-Garde .

The avant-garde is a famously slippery category; the definition we'll be working from, more or less, is the series of movements and individuals from 1900 to 1940, based mostly in Europe, that led culture and the arts in directions that talked back to power, pushed aesthetic limits outward, and explored ways to give the arts social and political weight. While largely focused on writers, we'll also spend a lot of time with visual artists and other media and will address questions such the line between Modernism and the Avant-Garde and the roles of women in these movements.

LITR 1152B. Ekphrasis in Action .

Ekphrasis, according to its most basic definition, is simply poetry that addresses art; we'll be stretching that definition, making it into a way of interacting with art, of living with art, and even of looking at things in ways that make them into art. We'll be both reading texts in which others stretch the definition of ekphrasis and visiting sites on or quite near the Brown campus to engage in on-site exploration and writing. It’s a course about discovering and exploring the ways that we represent and therefore create and recreate the world.

LITR 1152C. Writers-in-the-Community Training & Residencies .

This course will operate mostly “in the field.” We will spend some weeks discussing pedagogical approaches to teaching creative writing in community settings. We will thereafter train in residence, observing a poetry residency at a local elementary school, with visits to other community settings as well (sites to be determined). We will continue to discuss pedagogy, classroom practices and management, administrator-writer relations, and all other necessary logistical planning throughout the semester. By week 7, students will engage in their own writing residencies in pairs or small teams, working in a community setting of their choosing (K-12 school, shelter, library, etc.).

LITR 1152E. Between the Seams: Hybrid Works .

Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works Of Billy The Kid is part novel, poetry sequence, and visual collage; Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red is novel and poem. If, as Georges Bataille has put it, literature is a series of dislocations rather than a continuum, these “hybrid” works and others mark important breaks in the literary status quo. We will take inspiration from writing in which structures rub up against each other. Using poetry and prose, we’ll seek intuitive logics in juxtaposition of text and image, and look at writers using hybrid forms as models for documenting ways of knowing and unknowing.

LITR 1152F. The Shape of Longing .

What are some of the formal shapes longing takes in poetry and fiction, film and music? Through a devotional experience with great works of art, creative pieces will be generated by the students and shared in class. Texts shall include Wagner, Sappho, Tagore, Rumi, St John of the Cross, Desnos, Kawabata, Woolf, Frisch, Valentine, Howe, Pessoa, Vuong, Angelopoulus, Weerasethakul, Kieslowski, Chacon, Jenkins, Coltrane and West.

LITR 1152G. Rebuilding the Book .

In the face of digital and other emergent technologies, where is the book today—what are its limits? Conversely, what is its essence? We'll blend the history of the book and its relationship to the visual arts with the creation of inventive book structures. Slide lectures and discussions will cover the emergence of writing and its gradual incorporation into book structures from tablet through scroll to codex, focusing on the development of the relationship between text and image, with a focus on late 19th century livre d’artiste, the “democratic multiple” (1960s); and two contemporary developments: the sculptural book and the altered book.

LITR 1152H. Writing from the Archives/In the Subjunctive Mood .

Memory, history, and trace haunt the present, perception, and the cultural contexts in which we live. When we turn to the archival record, we note its focus on the powerful, and its critical exclusion of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and LGTBQ people, people with disabilities, and “wild” women. A growing number of writers employ new means to open the lens to render the present more clearly through counter-narrative, critical fabulation, and reparative technique. We will read and write in this vein toward a new poetics of archive and study methods that give attention to the “unrecorded” incident, emotion, image, and music.

LITR 1152I. Poets' Tour of the Essay .

In this advanced workshop seminar, we will read essays that draw us into the question of art and evidence, surveying prose forms that fall across the spectrum. A sub-genre of nonfiction with the ability to shapeshift across forms, essays’ elastic, bridging and blurring qualities span memoir, epistle, catalog, argument, observation, travelogue and more. We will read essays written in the past that demonstrate as much ingenuity as the post-modern, and contemporary essays that straddle genre. We will discuss the “poetics” of the essay as we look for innovation within the form to examine what new insight is gained through experiment. Interested students should bring a literary writing sample to the first class meeting. The instructor will announce at the first class the date/time that a class list and waitlist will be posted (typically a few days after the first class meeting).

LITR 1152J. Hybrid Writing Workshop: The Long Engagement .

In this course we will explore the tradition and possibilities of open-form hybrid writing via extended engagement with other works of literature and artworks, as well as with the writing practice itself. We will read a range of writers’ such engagements and class time will largely be devoted to reading discussion, workshop, and occasional in-class writing exercises. In weekly writing assignments we will work across genres, with chance procedures and exploratory modes designed to extend, deepen and complicate our writing practices. Students’ final project will be a long engagement with the work of another writer of their choosing.

LITR 1152K. The Shape of Longing .

This class will examine a variety of formal strategies that artists, writers, composers and mystics have used to render longing palpable, present and felt in works of art.  Through a series of writing assignments, students will make their own explorations into this charged, expansive, and elusive terrain. A rigorous class of risk and experimentation.

LITR 1152L. I’m Feeling Myself: The Black Female Body as Its Own Utopia .

Audre Lorde described sensuality as an immense, untapped power within each of us “that lies in a deeply female plane.” What would that power, generated by a Black woman’s body, look like? By focusing solely on the poetry, art, and music of Black women, we explore the Black female body as its own utopia. Weekly readings include Lorde, Jordan, hooks, Morrison, and Dove, alongside the artwork of Mickalene Thomas and Wangechi Mutu, and the music videos of Rihanna, Janet Jackson, and Beyoncé. By re-centering the western gaze on the Black feminine erotic, we discover a poetics of the impolite body.

LITR 1152M. Speculative Fiction and the Literature of Imagination .

Speculative Fiction and the Literature of Imagination is a seminar in the development of speculative fiction as a form over the last generation, its role in articulating political counternarratives, especially in the case of Afrofuturism, its reliance on imagination as a creative strategy, and its position as a particularly uncompromising outpost of experimental writing. The class will consist of weekly readings, as well as frequent creative assignments on issues raised by particular texts, and will include one presentation on a speculative work by each participant. Readings will include Mary Shelley, Sun Ra, Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler, William Gibson, N. K. Jemisin, and Ted Chiang, etc.

LITR 1152N. Ecopoetics in Action .

What we have perpetrated on our environment has certainly affected a poet's means and material, thinking and life. Can poetry embody values that acknowledge the economy of interrelationship between human and non-human realms? How might poetry register the complex interdependency that draws us into a dialogue with the world, moving beyond theme and reference? In this class, we will think-with ecoscapes, ecotones, and Animalia (ourselves included, along with our humanimal contexts), and other life and nonlife forms, via the lapping possibilities of poetic language. We will write, read, discuss, create, think, experience. Do be prepared for some “field work”.

LITR 1152O. G-d Dream .

What, historically and aesthetically, constitutes an oracular vision, a clairvoyant revelation, a sign from another dimension? In this class we will explore a variety of ecstatic visions, from the Revelations of John of Patmos and Dream of the Rood, to Timothy Leary and L. Ron Hubbard, all in an effort to hone our own innervisions of what exists beyond. In this multimedia workshop we shall be free to experiment with language, sound, light, pigment. Can our own creative endeavors become expressions of "...the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."?

LITR 1152P. Structuring and Revising Reported Narrative Nonfiction .

This is a class in crafting and structuring essential, reported stories for maximum impact. How do you properly pace a longform story? How do you pitch, report, outline, and edit one? With the collapse of newspapers and magazines around the country, how can we still beautifully tell some of the critical stories that are going untold? The first half of class will run like a magazine editorial meeting, discussing weekly pitches grounded in a particular region—and, later, drafts, which will workshop. The second half of class, we will discuss reading that explores various approaches to structure, voice, and genre.

LITR 1152Q. Land Arts .

This ekphrastic workshop/seminar overflows the traditional definition of Land Art to encompass a much greater range, including contemporary modes of ecologically-oriented art. The class will be broken down into five thematic sections: 1) interventional land art, in which the earth is sculpted, excavated, or augmented; 2) ephemeral land art; in which elements from the landscape are worked into impermanent works; 3) kinetic land art, in which artists participate in the land, rather than making an object of or from it; 4) growing land art, in which plants and trees are grown into constantly changing and yet permanent forms; and 5) ecologically-oriented art, in which a variety of materials and practices are engaged to underscore contemporary issues of ecological importance.

LITR 1152R. Money! .

“Money, it’s a crime/Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie…” So begins the end verse of Pink Floyd’s dad-rock classic “Money”. We'll explore financial literacy, class and identity, market trends, consumer demands, and alternative forms of currency—all by way of literary realism. At the beginning of the semester, you will be randomly assigned a character with their own income, assets, and debts. From week to week you will tell their story in real time, tracking their investments (if any) in state-sanctioned markets (and/or other channels). What will your single mother do with an inheritance after the untimely passing of her father? Whether coming from a hyper-capitalist or Marxist-Lacanian perspective, we'll reckon with the many ways (implicit and explicit) that money has come to define our lives—and perhaps, how and where it should never come between us.

LITR 1152S. Race and the Making of Art (ARTS 1004) .

Interested students must register for ARTS 1004 .

LITR 1152T. Memory’s Imagination .

Taking inspiration from the autobiographical work of newly minted Nobel Laureate, Annie Ernaux, we will examine and produce works of fiction, creative narrative non-fiction and hybrid texts that cleave, in that good old double-sense, to personal experience and/or personal passions. Works by Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Michael Ondaatje, John Keene, Jessica Au and Svetlana Alexeivich will be on the menu to inform and inspire. Students can expect a substantial weekly reading load and should come to each class prepared to discuss the assigned texts and linked creative assignments.

LITR 1152V. The Space Crone and Her Children: Queer Reproductions in Science Fiction .

Rockets and Martian terraforming are frequent themes in the news. Less mentioned is human reproduction. Given humans must reproduce in space to actualize grand narratives of extraterrestrial exploration, this is a curious omission. Fortunately, science fiction does not neglect these matters. Sexuality, gender, and birth are of great interest to speculative writers; the future is an exciting place to live erotic lives. This is a course about possible genders, possible sexualities, possible ecologies. Reading queer feminist science fiction—e.g., Octavia Butler, Irene Clyde, Samuel Delany, N. K. Jemisin, Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ—we will consider how cycles of life might (already) be otherwise and interrogate current events re: reproductive and LGBTQIA+ rights, thinking both analytically and imaginatively. Participants will develop their own speculative prose.

LITR 1152W. Cinema Poetics .

We shall study the poetics of cinema and how the video-poem can expand, deepen, rescue, extend our writing and writing practices. We'll watch a panoply of poem-films, video art, and "poetic" feature length films to discern their basic components of sound + text + motion, their principles of composition and editing techniques. Our texts will explore concepts of diaspora and memory, documentary poetics, footage and sound recordings from which students will assemble video poems or essays of their own. Students will need access to a video editing application such as iMovie, Adobe Premiere, Premiere Rush, Stop Motion Studios, DaVinci Resolve, Canva, for instance.

LITR 1152X. Writing with the Family Archives .

VHS tapes, recipes, birth and immunization records, letters, heirlooms, passports, a shoebox of photographs, old laptops — these are among the tangible artifacts that make up the family archive. Amid the tangible, we recognize the intangible and ephemeral matter, such as oral histories, songs, missing records, objects lost in migration now only filed in memory. how do we open a creative space for these often undervalued inventories? In this class we shall read several texts of poetry and hybrid nonfiction that grapple with familial documents & materials, while, at the same time, beginning our own archival projects. We shall raise questions about the kind of research this project entails, the ethics of writing about kin, how to work creatively with photographs, audio, objects and documents, and how to write into that empty gap of what's missing from the archive.

LITR 1152Z. Creative Process Workshop .

Creative Writing can be understood as a method of turning ideas, sounds, images, snippets, fragments, dreams, research -- and any and all of life's materials -- into fully realized literary works. The "work" of these works is hidden when we read books and published authors, and thus our sense of how excellent work is achieved can be underdeveloped or perfectionistic. When we rely on only a reader's perspective to guide us as artists, it provides little to no sense of artistic path. The path that an artist takes to develop a work is one that is non-linear, messy, and full of wonderful byways. It doesn't easily fit into an editorial perspective, and thus the way in which work is discussed will be different from literature courses. This workshop is for writers of all levels to explore in more depth their

LITR 1153A. The Illiberal Imagination: Fictions of Disinformation, Conspiracy, and Control .

What do an artist and a politician have in common? One person might say that they both make things up. Another might claim that both aim to tell truths that unite audiences. Bearing this genre-related ambiguity in mind, this course will explore the description of illiberal and anti-progressive political ideals and systems—particularly, although not exclusively, in narrative fiction. This class is therefore also about the strategies politicians, novelists, and others use to shape our sense of what is real and to argue for particular accounts of what is valuable, just, and possible, as well as how human life should be led. We will consider the work of Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis, Colleen Hoover, R.F. Kuang, George Orwell, Thomas Pynchon, Ayn Rand, and the Marquis de Sade, among others, attending to the ways in

LITR 1153B. Ambient Grief: Writing the Alteration .

D.H. Lawrence once wrote, "Tragedy is like strong acid–it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth." A journey through major, sudden trauma is the more familiar literary route to the excavation of such truth, but what of the quotidian grief that accompanies something as constant as climate change or as much of a slow-drip as the aging process? How do we write about grief that the world doesn't quite accept as grief? How do we use our writing to build a bridge away from isolation, and towards the universal well of compassion for others? In this class, we'll be culturing the pearls of such ambient grief, isolating what we can in order to examine the way ambient grief reshapes our sense of ourselves and sharpens our sense of the world beyond.

LITR 1153C. The Weak Novel .

The “weak” novel has been with us for a long time. The weak novel is a novel that partly or wholly fails to be a novel, at all. This is the confessional novel, the documentary novel, the novel that includes material from other genres of writing and fields of knowledge, the non-narrative novel, the unoriginal novel, the novel that plays with its status as a material object or book. It is possible that no novel exists without its allegedly weak(er) cousins, and that no novel—no matter how big, strong, or novelistic—is without its moments of weakness. We will read such authors as Kathy Acker, Percival Everett, David Foster Wallace, Robert Glück, John Keene, and Eileen Myles and compose our own gloriously “weak” fictions.

LITR 1200. Writers on Writing .

Offers students an introduction to the study of literature (including works from more than one genre) with special attention given to a writer's way of reading. This course will include visits to the course by contemporary writers, who will read to the class and talk about their work. Enrollment is limited to 30 students.

LITR 1220A. History and Practice of English Versification .

An opportunity to study through reading and imitating poems that represent a variety of poetic eras and traditions. S/NC.

LITR 1220B. Samuel Beckett .

This course will mark the centenary of the author by reading and discussing a range of works from Samuel Beckett's substantial output of fiction, poetry, drama and translation.

LITR 1220C. The Cantos in their Environment .

A reading of Pound's Cantos, with attention to their origin and developments, their background and their influence.

LITR 1220D. The Bible as Literary Source .

A survey of the English Bible and its presence in English and American literature. Students will learn to notice and account for Biblical echoes in a wide variety of writings from several cultures.

LITR 1220E. Dada and Surrealism .

Two of the most famous modernist movements, studied through their writings, their visual arts, their performances, and their manifestoes; their origins and influence; their place in history. S/NC.

LITR 1220F. Restoration Drama .

A survey of English drama and theatrical practice from the reopening of the theaters at the Restoration to the early eighteenth century. Works of the major playwrights, including Dryden, Congreve, Wycherly, Gay. S/NC.

LITR 1220G. The Waste Land and After .

We shall examine Eliot's poem, and then deal with early poems by W.H. Auden and the work of Charles Williams and David Jones. S/NC

LITR 1220H. Gertrude Stein and What Comes After (ENGL 1711M) .

Interested students must register for ENGL 1711M.

LITR 1220I. Zoopoetics (ENGL 1900J) .

Interested students must register for ENGL 1900J .

LITR 1230C. Poetry Newly in Translation in English .

This is a reading, writing. translation, and discussion class. Commit to a vigorous combination of all four. Some translation theory will be reviewed, but the emphasis of the course is upon models of translations. Texts will include works by Iva Blatny, Inger Christensen, Luljeta Lleshanaku, David Huerta, Takashi Hiraide; new translations of Rimbaud and Baudelaire and others. Enrollment limited to 20. S/NC

LITR 1230D. Poetry, Mind, World .

How does the poetic mind negotiate between an account of itself and an account of the world? How have poets used landscape as a model of mind, as an erotics, as elegy? Merleau-Ponty, Hardy, Houle, Alexander, Dewdney, Hass, D'Aquino, Audubon and others. Presentation, several short essays, a poem, and one final essay.

LITR 1230E. Form and Theory of Fiction .

"Form and Theory of Fiction" offers an exploration of narrative theories directed particularly at creative writers, in conjunction with a hands-on examination of contemporary fictional narrative practices. Theoretical readings include historical essays on fiction and work by Gaston Bachelard, Mieke Bal, Gilles Deleuze, and others. Enrollment limited to 20.

LITR 1230F. Writing, Reading City .

In this course, we will explore correlations, points of convergence, and possible mimesis between city and text. Students will be expected to keep a weekly journal, to have a city in question, and to write both imaginatively and critically in response to readings and class discussion.

LITR 1230G. Master Poets of Apartheid Streets: Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden, Margaret Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks .

With the theme of "Slavery and Justice" in recent Brown University review, [4] "Master Poets of Apartheid Streets: Perpetual Resistance against de jure and de facto Segregation" is the formal and precise embouchure as Critical Realism which legislates as antidote to pernicious social, economic and educational racism: the aesthetic stance of this seminar is "An Integer Is a Whole Number." Through close attention to the conventions of poetry as praxis by these four master poets, in social context, the modality of this study is poetic discourse (what Frederick Douglass called "a sacred effort" in Douglass' description of President A. Lincoln's 'Second Inaugural.' Peripheral insights will be provided by Brown University researchers of the past: Charles H. Nichols, Winthrop Jordan, Richard Slotkin, in their three dissertations, and James R. Patterson's most recent book on "Brown v. Board of Education." Written permission required. Enrollment limited to 20. S/NC.

LITR 1230H. Being in Time .

In this discussion-based course, we will examine the many roles time plays in the building of narratives as well as its impact on contemporary concepts of self. We will use both literary and philosophical texts to explore the spaces between time and perception, time and memory, time and experience, and time and grammar. Written permission required.

LITR 1230I. The Documentary Vision in New Literature of the Americas .

A study of genre-defiant works, lyric treatments, atypical narratives, film poems, etc., including works by Anne Carson, Elena Poniatowska, W.S. Merwin, Maggie Nelson, Raoul Zurita and others. Enrollment limited to 20.

LITR 1230J. Writing: Material Differences .

An exploration of practices that make a material difference to writing, that may change what writing is in specific cultural circumstance and locations. We will look for such differences through transcultural and translingual experiments with writing, beginning "West" and moving "East." We will engage with a selection of widely divergent writers and genres, with emphases on poetics - particularly a translated rendition of Chinese poetics (such as was taken up by Pound and became influential in English literature) - and on theories that we can use for our practice, from: Fenollosa, Foucault, Derrida, and others. Enrollment limited to 20.

LITR 1230K. Latin American Death Trip .

Death is the subject of many of the greatest (most moving, innovative, funny, haunting, political, oneiric) Latin American poems of the 20th century, from Gorostiza's Death without End to Villaurrutia's Nostalgia for Death to Saenz' The Night . What is up with Latin Americans and death? What particularities of culture, gender, age, faith or experience might account for the visionary clarity of death as constant companion or permeable border, etc.? What makes the poems great? We shall read classic Latin American books in bilingual editions (so Spanish literacy is not a requirement, but we'll talk about translation issues). Students will be expected to participate in literary discussions, to write essays and a death poem. Enrollment limited to 20.

LITR 1230L. Eros: Hot and Sour .

Literature, early and late, distant and near, at the intersection of love and loathing. A seminar on selected texts deriving their blood from poetry, their flesh from fiction, their anatomy from form and theory. Including works by Rikki Ducornet, Anne Carson, Roland Barthes, Helen Cixous, Gertrude Stein, Catullus, Henry Miller, et al. Enrollment limited to 20.

LITR 1230M. Poetry and Ethics (COLT 1812J) .

Interested students must register for COLT 1812J .

LITR 1230N. Robert Coover -- Foremost Storyteller .

We shall examine the works of contemporary American fiction writer, Robert Coover. During his long, celebrated career, Coover has imaginatively responded to writers and forms that have come before him. We'll investigate how Coover appropriates earlier traditions and think about how he simultaneously preserves and subverts literary traditions. We shall consider such concepts as myth, religion, and history, and determine how Coover applies these. We'll focus on authorial strategies and themes explored. Furthermore, we'll define literary terminology as a tools for textual and critical analysis. Finally, through this experience you can develop or refine the capacity for self-expression and communication. Enrollment limited to 20.

LITR 1230O. Suppression and Invention in Modern Persian Literature .

This course begins with symbolic elements from classical mystic Persian literature and journeys into pre- and post-revolution Persian short fiction and poetry. We shall analyze creative responses to restricted expression, study efforts to modernize in a variety of genres, and finish with the rise of the woman writer in Iran. Enrollment limited to 20.

LITR 1230P. The New Wave in Iranian Cinema .

We shall explore this movement that produced remarkable award-winning films in Iran. Applying author (auteur) theory, we will study new Iranian movies, analyzing "signs and meaning" in their cinematic language, also investigating effects of Iranian culture on this new artistic wave. Enrollment limited to 20. S/NC

LITR 1230Q. London Consequences .

This course focuses upon a selection of British prose from the 1960s and 1970s, and gives particular attention to post-war literary history in Britain, autobiographical fiction and the legacy of neo-modernism. We'll consider the work of, among others, Anna Kavan, J.G. Ballar, Nicholas Mosley, Muriel Spark, Christine Brooke-Rose, Stefan Themerson, Ann Quin and B.S. Johnson, along with (if available) London Consequences, a collaborative novel co-edited by Johnson.

LITR 1230T. The Origins of the Detective Story .

This class will explore the development of the Detective genre, focusing on its roots in the 19th century and considering more broadly how genres develop and change. Readings include E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Mademoiselle de Scudery", Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin stories, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Martin Hewett, and selections from Detection by Gaslight and The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime. We will also look at theoretical texts, including Franco Moretti's "Clues". This course fulfills Literary Arts' pre-20th century literature requirement. Enrollment limited to 20.

LITR 1230U. Samuel Beckett .

This course will examine the works of Samuel Beckett--novels, plays and stories--from the beginning of his career to his death. We will read the majority of Beckett's work, with a major focus on his novel trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable) and on the other work Beckett published between 1948 and 1961 (especially Endgame and How It Is).

LITR 1230V. Why Don't We Fall in Love? .

We focus here on intersections of the erotic and poetry. How do we fall in love? Why? We will explore joy and happiness, love and lust, devotion and seduction. We will also, unfortunately, explore longing, heartbreak, jealousy, unrequited love. We will explore, through literature and film, the ageless enigma that prompted Ruth Stone to proclaim, "there is no choice among the voices / of love..."

LITR 1230W. Spectroscopy: [Identifying] Black Bodies in Narrative .

We shall focus on character development and narrative structure through the formation and presence of textual and cinematic black bodies. Our discussions will focus on the identification of that which is not allowed to speak -- the prototypical foil (Caliban), the other (Man Friday), the black body (Jim). How are narratives (how are we) shaped by that which cannot be acknowledged?

LITR 1230X. The New Long Poem .

An energetic study of powerful, book-length poems recently published in English, including texts as core to 20th c. literature as Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo to books as archly exacting as John Ashbery's Flow Chart, as affably innovative as Lyn Hejinian's My Life, as ingeniously formal as Inger Christiansen's alphabet and as unruly as Frank Stanford's The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You. Also: Bernadette Mayer’s Midwinter Day, Evan S. Connell’s Notes Found in a Bottle on a Beach at Carmel, W.S. Merwin’s The Folding Cliffs, and the intra-genre Cecilia Vicuna’s Spit Temple.

LITR 1230Y. Structuring (and De-Structuring) Novels: Special Topics Literature Seminar .

How to structure a novel? This is a question most novelists approach with dread, because, a) all the good plots and structures have been used up; b) plots can feel annoying anyway, like a capitulation to cinema or theater; and c) nevertheless, it is impossible to write in total darkness. We’ll dispel this darkness by reading works by a range of novelists. How do these authors strike a balance between complex thought and elegant/unusual structure? And how can we, as writers, maintain narrative coherence over the course of hundreds of pages?

LITR 1230Z. Syncretic Gods .

Is it possible to kill a God? What happens within a generation to change the face of a God? To change the nature of a God itself? In this course we will research the various transformations of the myths of Yoruba deities as they too traverse middle passage in the suffocating holds of merchant ships. We will commit to the (subversive) task of imagining and re-imagining the myths of the Orishas. Using as a foundation the seventeen drawings in Cuban artist Alberto del Pozo’s Orichas series, we will cover the storied lives of these our immortal and syncretic Gods.

LITR 1231A. Time Mechanics: Poetry as Translation .

This seminar focuses on experimental translations and transcreations in the spirit of Spicer’s claim in After Lorca: “A poet is a time mechanic not an embalmer.” Various approaches to leading a text across the time and space divide will be studied. If for Pound to “make new” is to look elsewhere, for Zukofsky it’s to listen closely. If Hawkey’s Ventrakl posits the poem’s decomposition over time, Bang gives us a current, self-obsolescing version of Dante’s hell. And while Hsia Yü’s poems stage the clash of analogue and digital transmission technologies, Brandon Brown offers contemporary readers Fleur du mal version 2.0.

LITR 1231B. The Enchantment of Re-Imagining .

The author, Sam Leith, likened the recent Jane Austen project (in which six authors are tasked with rewriting Jane Austen for a modern audience) to “writing fiction as literary criticism.” In this course, we are invited to think more speculatively about the role of re-imagination in literature and society by reading texts which do not only re-imagine the past by reframing history but which also re-imagine life and the present to offer us an alternate view. In some cases, these texts re-write existing classics. We will engage closely with the texts and relevant works of criticism.

LITR 1231C. Experimental Poets of Color .

In this course we'll read and critically engage with contemporary experimental poets of color writing in English in the US and Canada. Exploring the intersection of poetics, aesthetics, critical race (and mixed race) theory, and social justice activism in the arts, we will question the modernist and post-modernist assumptions that experimentation and innovation are exclusively the domain of whiteness. We will explore how racism, colonialism, and other contemporary systems of oppression condition responses to poets of color, and consider how poets of color respond to and engage with these systems both overtly and through their aesthetic experimentation.

LITR 1231D. Narrative Possession: spirits, shamans and the walking dead .

Narrative Possession offers a creative and critical investigation of the nature of possession as it manifests in film, fiction, and theory, exploring narrative depictions of possession across a wide range of international cultural practices including shamanism, voodoo, Spiritualism and séance. We will explore the theoretical and political ramifications of possession as it pertains to embodiment, sovereignty, private property and personal identity. Texts include works by Toni Morrison, Muriel Spark, Antoine Volodine, Zora Neal Hurston, Lafcadio Hearn, Ishmael Reed, Cesar Aira, kobo Abe, Derrida, Sartre, and De Certeau. Films include works by Cocteau, Camus, Tourneur, and Russell.

LITR 1231E. Rereading Writing .

We will study writing and, more generally, language art in terms of reading, both reexamining theories and practices of writing — in linguistics, the philosophy of language, and in the actual making of literature — and also by proposing that reading is constitutive of language regardless of its medium. What is reading, historically, theoretically, and in the digitally mediated future of culture? If reading brings language into being, then how should we read and what should we compose to be read? Readings from Saussure and Ong to Hayles, Derrida, and beyond. Optional critical-creative project.

LITR 1231F. Listening/Voicing .

“How you sound??” the poet Amiri Baraka once asked. This seminar is concerned with acts of communication as pertains to voicing and listening. How do poets sound out in the world, and to whom? We will explore notions of voice as more than a site of identity production, looking at, for example, the various fractures possible in Sappho’s “voice” and what is carried to us through history, while also considering forms of singular and collective sounding via a range of poets and writers. On the other side of voice, we’ll read into and experiment with acts of deep listening.

LITR 1231G. Traditions of Rupture: the Latin American Avant-Garde .

We will read and write creative responses to poetry and hybrid works by the generation of early 20th-century Latin American writers who shaped a distinct corpus owing as much to the European tradition as to the region’s postcolonial history and vernacular: Huidobro, Vallejo, Neruda, Borges, and Guillén, and the Brazilian Modernists. We will also study postwar innovators—Berenguer, di Giorgio, Paz, Pizarnik, Parra, and the Brazilian Concrete Poets—as well as contemporary writers’ contributions to the expansion of the field. Special focus will be devoted to translation matters, indigenous writing, and ecopoetics. Knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese is not necessary.

LITR 1231H. New York City 1965-2001 .

NYC's a city constantly in crisis. It's a city in protest, turning over its own history, its fatal oversights. A place where missteps made in the blink of an eye might mean death—or sliding into the dark groove between princes(ses) and peasants. We’re looking for NYC's story from 1965 to 2001. Why these years as bookends? Why this city made of boroughs held together by a sticky substance of uncertain origin we might call pride or ideology…? More importantly, what does it take to write historical fiction? To write about the places most important to us?

LITR 1231I. The Sacred & Profane: Dante, Milton, Rushdie .

We will explore a variety of sacred texts in the Abrahamic tradition to better understand the major works of four radical makers (in chronologic order): Dante Alighieri, John Milton, Charles Mingus, and Salman Rushdie. We will read supplementary texts by Durkheim, Eliade Mircea, Simone Weil, Carl Jung, and Edward Said.

LITR 1231J. Histories .

Historical figures like Herodotus, Hannibal, Billy the Kid and Calamity Jane have all served as energy nodes around which writers have built significant works of prose. In this seminar we will examine texts like Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter, Toni Morrison’s Beloved and W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants as part of an exploration of that prose which, if we can kick awake that poor overworked pearl, posits the historical as its grain of sand. Students can expect a substantial weekly reading load of primary and secondary source material and should come to each class prepared to discuss the assigned texts.

LITR 1231K. Innovations in Indian Literature .

Modern Indian literature developed in the shadow of colonialism and the birth of the nation state. Indian writers working in English and vernacular languages were forced to confront a sudden—and fragmented—modernity. What innovative narrative and literary strategies did they embrace in response to this historical and cultural pressure? Do these techniques have application beyond the Indian context? In general, how do cultural and political forces precipitate formal innovation?

LITR 1300. Independent Study in Reading, Research, and Writing About Literature .

Provides advanced students with an opportunity to pursue tutorial instruction oriented toward a literary research topic.

LITR 1310. Independent Study in Creative Writing .

Offers tutorial instruction oriented toward some significant work in progress by the student. Typically taken by honors or capstone candidates in the antepenultimate or penultimate semester. See instructor to seek permission during the semester before undertaking the course of study. One advanced-level workshop is prerequisite. S/NC.

LITR 1410A. Fiction Honors .

A workshop setting for the completion of theses by advanced writers of fiction. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all honors workshops. Instructor permission required. Enrollment limited to 12 senior Literary Arts concentrators. S/NC.

LITR 1410C. Playwriting Honors .

A workshop setting for the completion of theses or capstone projects by advanced writers of dramatic literature. See general course description above for course entry procedures for all honors/capstone workshops. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 1510. Honors Independent Study in Creative Writing .

Provides tutorial instruction for students completing their theses or capstone projects. Typically taken by honors or capstone candidates in their final semester. See instructor to seek permission during the semester before undertaking the course of study. S/NC.

LITR 2010A. Graduate Fiction .

Advanced practice of the art: a writing seminar, limited to graduate students in Literary Arts. Emphasis is placed on developing a better understanding of the creative process, strategies and forms. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 2010B. Graduate Poetry .

LITR 2010C. Graduate Playwriting .

LITR 2110A. Theatrical Styles on Stage and Page .

An investigation of theatrical forms and for collaborations among actors, directors and playwrights. This course is limited to participants in the MFA programs in acting, directing and playwriting. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

LITR 2110C. Reading, Writing and Thinking .

A course for graduate prose writers. We will explore various ways to engage with a work of art in order to fuel one¿s imagination and projects. Close textual reading of several books with writing assignments based on the readings. Writers will include Woolf, Stein, Beckett, Coetze, Kertesz and others. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 2110E. The Foreign Home: Interdisciplinary Arts .

Project-centered workshop for exploration beyond one's "home" genre, whether in video, poetry, fiction, music, performance or visual arts. Contemporary and art-historical interdisciplinary works will ground our investigation into the tension between expertise and "beginner's mind". Collaborative and individual work expected. Written permission required. S/NC.

LITR 2110F. Essays Without Borders .

A workshop for writing, performing, or media artists exploring essay or non-fiction forms in any genre. No project too strange, no essay too fanciful. Readings and research into experimental non-fiction. Individual and group work as well as critical and artistic projects. Literary Arts MFAs will be given priority. Come to first meeting for permission. Enrollment limited to 12. Permission required. S/NC.

LITR 2110G. Writing The Novel .

For advanced fiction writers who wish to work in long form. Through this course, participants will read a selection of novels and investigate the form; the primary emphasis will be placed on the work being undertaken by the members of the workshop itself. S/NC.

LITR 2110H. Embodying the Book .

What are the limits of the book? How far can it go? Alternatively, what is its essence? What is absolutely essential to it? This collaborative class brings writers together with RISD industrial designers and graphics artists to consider these questions and to create inventive book structures. Focus will be on collaboration itself, with texts addressing various aspects, such as the ethics of cooperation and group dynamics, as well as on the history and nature of the book as a cultural tool and force. Working in teams of three, students will invent their own structures and work together to embody them.

LITR 2110K. Deep Rivers, Lost Roads, Bent Symbols: Poets and Poetry Outside the Frame .

Geographically and/or aesthetically suspect, often shelved under the wrong rubric. Word-works by hermits and wanderers, sots and sot nots, whose language confirm, as Sister Rosetta Tharpe sang: Strange Things Happening Every Day. Including work by Besmilr Brigham, Wong May, Bernadette Mayer, Mary Reufle, Frank Stanford, David Fisher, a new translation of Beowulf (by an American! A Woman!), and others. There may also be music.

LITR 2110M. Challenging the Single Story: Reading Africa .

In recent years, there has been an explosion of new writing from Africa on the international scene, even as the single narrative of the continent persists. In this course, we will engage with fiction published in the last 15 years as well as critical texts and essays. Students will read fiction written in different genres. We will examine, among other things, how these writers negotiate their themes without compromising the integrity of their craft with a view to excelling in our own writing.

LITR 2110O. Dialogue, Monologue, & Dialect .

This hybrid workshop/seminar for graduate students will use works of fiction, cinema, theater, and narrative poetry as beginning points for experiments and discussions centered on a wide range of concepts and practices designed to widen how they hear and see the possibilities of voice and body language in their work. Special attention will be paid to regional and international, especially hybrid, forms of English.

LITR 2110P. World of Echoes: The Poet as Translator .

How is a poet’s translation different from other translations? What factors determine a poet’s choice to translate a specific author? For this seminar we will read innovative poetry recently translated by a diverse group of poets. Examples include Jennifer Scapettone’s rendering of Amelia Rosselli’s Locomotrix, Sawako Nakayasu’s translations of Chika Sagawa, and Daniel Borzutzky’s version of Raúl Zurita’s The Book of Planks. Besides the translated materials, we will consider their relationship to the translator/poets’ own works and the politics of cultural transmission. Students may engage in translation projects themselves or respond creatively to the materials, thereby also engaging in translation.

LITR 2210A. House Language .

We shall explore the house and its adjacent places and categories, with a focus upon narrative mannerism, terror and the grotesque, and the creation of literary form. We'll discuss stories, essays, household artifacts and etiquette, architectural plans and dangerous parlor games. Works by, among others: Georges Perec, H.G. Wells, Shirley Jackson, Isabella Beeton, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Frank Lloyd Wright, Rube Goldberg and Edith Wharton.

LITR 2230. Graduate Independent Study in Reading, Research, and Writing About Literature .

Provides graduate students with an opportunity to pursue tutorial instruction oriented toward a literary research topic.

LITR 2310. Graduate Independent Studies in Literary Writing .

Offers tutorial instruction oriented toward some significant work in progress by the graduate student. S/NC.

LITR 2402C. Reading the Large Language Models: Artificial Intelligence, Language, and Literary Art (HMAN 2402C). .

Interested students must register for HMAN 2402C

LITR 2410. Graduate Thesis Independent Study in Literary Writing .

Provides tutorial instruction for graduate students completing their graduate creative theses. Typically taken in the final semester. See instructor to seek permission during the semester before undertaking the course of study. S/NC.

LITR 2450. Exchange Scholar Program .

LITR 2600. Seminar in Teaching Creative Writing .

A course focused on how to design and lead a creative writing workshop. Reading, writing and laboratory workshop sessions. Designed for first-year Literary Arts graduate students. S/NC.

LITR 2700. Pedagogy Seminar .

The Pedagogy Seminar examines ideas about teaching in a literary arts/creative writing environment. The pros and cons of the “workshop”-style will be discussed alongside alternative models, and general topics of exploration will include: creative process pedagogy, writing-to-learn, multi-genre approaches, uses of readings/research, and general classroom management. Designing an inclusive classroom and syllabus as well as exploring generative and innovative practices will be covered as well. A special emphasis will be on preparing students to feel confident and to explore a range of creative process issues. Personal writing as well as syllabus design will be expected.

LITR 2710. Literary Arts Pedagogy in Practice .

The Pedagogy in Practice Seminar examines ideas about teaching in a literary arts/creative writing environment. The pros and cons of the “workshop”-style will be discussed alongside alternative models, and general topics of exploration will include: creative process pedagogy, writing-to-learn, multi-genre approaches, uses of readings/research, and general classroom management. This is a hands-on forum to provide guidance on how to build an inclusive, pedagogically effective meeting space. A special emphasis will be on preparing instructors to feel confident and explore a range of creative process issues. There will be opportunities to develop personal writing, especially in response to student work.

LITR 2780. Graduate Independent Study in Professional Development .

This half-credit course is for a Literary Arts graduate student not enrolled in a pedagogy seminar. Through this independent study, the graduate student will work with a faculty advisor to prepare for the post-MFA experience. This may include a focus on aspects of teaching, but may also focus on related professional pursuits, such as working in literary agency, publishing and professional writing.

Brown’s Department in Literary Arts provides a home for innovative writers of fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting, literary translation, digital/cross-disciplonary and mixed media.  The concentration allows student writers to develop their skills in one or more genres while deepening their understanding of the craft of writing. Many courses in this concentration require a writing sample; students should consult a concentration advisor or the concentration website for strategies on getting into the appropriate course(s).

Candidates for the Bachelor of Arts degree with concentration in Literary Arts will be expected to complete the following course work:

1. At least four writing workshops from among the following series: LITR 0100A , LITR 0100B , LITR 0110A , LITR 0110B , LITR 0110D , LITR 0110E , LITR 011oH the various courses under LITR 0210, LITR 0310/0311, LITR 0610, LITR 1010, LITR 1110, LITR 1150/1151/1152 and LITR 1410 . At least two genres must be covered within the four workshops taken. An independent study in literary arts ( LITR 1310  and LITR 1510) may count toward the workshop requirement. Other writing-intensive courses may also count, at the discretion of the advisor.

2. Six elective reading and research in literary arts courses, which must include:

• a course in literary theory or the history of literary criticism
• a course that primarily covers readings and research in literary arts created before 1800
• a course that primarily covers readings and research in literary arts created before 1900
• a course that primarily covers readings and research in literary arts created after 1900

These courses, selected in consultation with a concentration advisor, may come from (but are not limited to) the following departments: Africana Studies, American Civilization, Classics, Comparative Literature, East Asian Studies, Egyptology, French Studies, German Studies, Hispanic Studies, Italian Studies, Judaic Studies, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures in English, Middle East Studies, Modern Culture and Media, Music, Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, Slavic Studies, South Asian Studies, Theatre, Speech and Dance, Visual Arts. With approval from the concentration advisor, courses covering pre-20th century time periods may be distributed in a variant manner, so long as they cover two distinct literary time periods that precede the 20th century

3. Among the ten required courses, at least four must be at the 1000-level or above. At least six classes (workshops and reading/research courses) that shall count toward the concentration must be taken at Brown through the Literary Arts Department; up to one of the six LITR courses may be a course taken in another department but cross-listed by Literary Arts. No more than two of the ten required courses for the concentration may also count toward fulfilling a second concentration.

4.  During the senior year, all students must take at least one course within the Literary Arts course offerings (courses with LITR designation by the Registrar, or courses approved by the concentration advisor).

Honors in Creative Writing: Course requirements are the same as those for the regular concentration (four workshops, six elective literature-reading courses), with the following changes and additions: honors candidates must include two 1000-level workshops or independent studies among their courses; and complete a thesis. Students in their seventh semester who are enrolled in or have completed at least one 1000-level workshop (or independent study) may submit honors applications to the Literary Arts Department from the first day of the fall semester to 25 September; and from 1 through 25 February in the spring. Interested students should obtain information from the office of the Literary Arts Department.

Honors in Literary Arts Production: Course requirements are the same as those for the regular concentration (four workshop, six literature-reading courses), with the following changes and additions: honors candidates must include two 1000-level workshops, production courses or related independent studies among their courses; and complete a production capstone project. Students in their seventh semester who are enrolled in or have completed at least one 1000-level workshop, production course or independent study, may submit honors applications to the Literary Arts Department from the first day of the fall semester to 25 September; and from 1 through 25 February in the spring. Interested students should obtain information form the Literary Arts Department.

The Graduate Program in Literary Arts offers a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A) degree with courses in fiction, poetry and digital/cross-disciplinary practices. 

For more information on admission and program requirements, please visit the following website:

http://www.brown.edu/academics/gradschool/programs/literary-arts

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Researchers@Brown

Literary Arts

For over 40 years, Literary Arts at Brown University has been a creative and intellectual center for the U.S. literary avant-garde.  Along with a handful of other writing programs nationwide, Brown provides a home for innovative writers of fiction, poetry, electronic writing (hypertext) and mixed media.

Established in the mid-1960s by poet, translator and critic Edwin Honig, Literary Arts at Brown continues its tradition of hiring and retaining a faculty comprised of nationally and internationally known authors.  Each year, the program offers 60 – 70 classes, awards the M.F.A. degree to approximately 12 graduate student writers, and confers Honors on about 35 talented seniors who will have completed the undergraduate concentration in Literary Arts.

The online MFA application deadline is 15 December.  Applicants can expect admission decisions by 15 March.

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Affiliations

Faculty administrative positions.

Shenoda, Matthew Chair of Literary Arts

Faculty Positions

Akinsiku, Lanre Assistant Professor of the Practice of Literary Arts

Cayley, John H Professor of Literary Arts

Channer, Colin C D Associate Professor of Literary Arts

Colella, Laura E Assistant Professor of the Practice of Literary Arts

Coover, Robert T.B. Stowell University Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts

Ebeid, Carolina Bonderman Assistant Professor of the Practice of Literary Arts

Field, Thalia L Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Creative Writing

Gander, Forrest Adele Kellenberg Seaver '49 Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing, Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts, and Professor Emeritus of Comparitive Literature

Hunt, Laird B Professor of Literary Arts

Ives, Lucy B Bonderman Professor of of the Practice of Literary Arts

Mahajan, Karan Associate Professor of Literary Arts

Mari, Francesca Assistant Professor of the Practice of Literary Arts

Maso, Carole Professor Emerita of Literary Arts

Nakayasu, Sawako Associate Professor of Literary Arts

Nelson, Peter Gale Senior Lecturer in Literary Arts

Shenoda, Matthew Professor of Literary Arts

Sikelianos, Eleni A Professor of Literary Arts

Steinbach, Meredith Professor Emerita of Literary Arts

Swensen, Cole Professor Emerita of Literary Arts

Townsend, Jacinda Assistant Professor of Literary Arts

Wideman, John Edgar Asa Messer Professor Emeritus of Africana Studies and Literary Arts

Theatre Arts & Performance Studies

Mfa in playwriting.

Brown's MFA in Playwriting seeks students who define themselves as writers, and whose writing resists definition—but involves a keen, tireless attention to live performance.

The MFA in Playwriting program is a place to study what writing for theater has been, while honing a creative practice that also feeds voraciously on the nontheatrical: all kinds of literature, art, rebellion, and thought. Above all it is a place and time to write like you've never written before.

_______________

RSVP: Brown University - MFA Playwriting Admissions Info Session

Application requirements.

• The first should be a complete full-length script for live performance (a.k.a. a play.)
• The second may be a part of a whole, and in any medium; if writing, no more than 15 pages, if visual no more than 15 images, if sound/video, no more than 15 minutes.
• If you have trouble uploading a second sample, or if it cannot be uploaded, please send it to the Graduate School, clearly marked Playwriting Application .
• Do not send samples directly to the department as this will delay the processing of your application.
• Statement of purpose: What are your writing goals over the next few years, and how can Brown's program serve them?
• Three recommendations: at least one of which speaks directly to your work as a theater artist.
• TOEFL : required for applicants from non-English speaking countries only; see Graduate School website for details.
• GRE (General/Subject) : Not required.

Application Deadline

January 3, 2025

For questions about the MFA Playwriting program, contact the Head of Playwriting, Julia Jarcho at [email protected] .

Applications to the PhD and MFA programs are submitted to, and managed through, the Graduate School. Please do not email the department with technical questions or requests to troubleshoot your online application submission. You can find detailed instructions about the application process and components on the Graduate School website . Refer to the application FAQ for additional questions.

Transcripts and letters of recommendation and any other supplementary materials should also be sent to directly to the Graduate School mailing address. Sending application materials to directly to TAPS will delay the processing of your application.

Financial Aid

The program provides a financial aid package that covers stipend, tuition, health fee, and health insurance for three years of full-time enrollment. In addition, the program provides stipends for fall and spring semesters for each year of full-time enrollment as well as a stipend for two summers (following first and second years). Funding is contingent on students remaining in good standing.

Learn More About Financial Aid

Graduate Handbooks

• MFA Playwriting Handbook
• All TAPS Graduate Handbooks

Playwriting News

The flea presents bathhouse.pptx by jesús valles '23, mfa students featured on the kilroys 2023 web., emma horwitz, playwriting mfa ‘20, featured in the new york times.

Brown University MA in Creative Writing

How much does a master’s in creative writing from brown cost, brown graduate tuition and fees.

Does Brown Offer an Online MA in Creative Writing?

Brown master’s student diversity for creative writing, male-to-female ratio.

Women made up around 76.9% of the creative writing students who took home a master’s degree in 2019-2020. This is higher than the nationwide number of 66.6%.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

Around 30.8% of creative writing master’s degree recipients at Brown in 2019-2020 were awarded to racial-ethnic minorities*. This is higher than the nationwide number of 24%.

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