ENGL 207 - Intermediate Creative Writing: Literary Non-Fiction

Semester Offered: Spring
1 1 unit(s)

Topic for 2021/22b: Writing About Culture. This seminar considers the relationship between individuals and “culture” broadly defined, with special attention paid to the question of “taste.” Guided by an eclectic range of texts-music and film reviews, memoir, travel writing, arts reportage-we pursue the possibility of a cultural criticism attentive to the subjectivity and instability of personal experience. Our semester is guided by a few basic questions: does criticism matter? What shapes our personal tastes? What can we demand from culture? What does it mean to love or hate a song? And how do our arguments about books, bands and TV-the ephemeral stuff of “culture”-connect to broader dreams about politics, faith, our sense of the world? Hua Hsu.

Prerequisite(s): Open to any student who has taken ENGL 205 or ENGL 206.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS