ENGL 207 - Intermediate Creative Writing: Literary Non-Fiction

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2026/27b: Writing About Cities. This course has traditionally focused on nonfiction writing about cities; once, for instance, we read and wrote about the experience of the pandemic in different parts of the world. This semester we undertake a different approach. We read both fiction and nonfiction about cities. My attempt is to introduce you to languages—a range of styles, regardless of genre—used to describe the human encounter in cities. It is my hope that we have a more genuinely literary experience if we blur the boundaries between forms, not least because in cities all kinds of divisions get dissolved. Let’s try to gather as much as we can from our examples and enrich our own writing habits. We read the following books: Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept; Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem; Katie Kitamura, Intimacies; George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London; Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers; Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Harlem is Nowhere; Teju Cole, Open City. Amitava Kumar.

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

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS