Liberal Arts Courses

Contemporary African + African American Literature

Course No. LLC 359  Credits: 3.0
Prerequisite(s) Writing + Inquiry I: Basic Composition + Contemporary Ideas | Writing + Inquiry I: Basic Composition + Contemporary Ideas | Writing + Inquiry II: Research + Intellectual Traditions | Writing + Inquiry II: Research + Intellectual Traditions

Today a good deal of third-world literature in particular expressed in many vital respects postmodern historical awareness of the parmountcy of the power relations hidden behind political, economic and social institutions and structures both nationally and internationally. With particular emphasis on political economy, this course will examine how this literature re-contextualizes such critical sociological questions as: What's traditionalism? What's modernization? The African-American texts highlight African-American socio-economic challenges today, dating back to Emancipation/Reconstruction, alongside their efforts at socio-cultural self-definitions. Fulfills Humanities/Cultural Studies distribution requirement. Creative Writing Concentration course. Prerequisites: LLC 101 and LLC 102.

Art of the Personal Essay

Course No. LLC 373W  Credits: 3.0
Faculty Scott Lax
Prerequisite(s) Writing + Inquiry I: Basic Composition + Contemporary Ideas | Writing + Inquiry I: Basic Composition + Contemporary Ideas | Writing + Inquiry II: Research + Intellectual Traditions | Writing + Inquiry II: Research + Intellectual Traditions

In this workshop course we will work on developing an understanding of the personal essay as a distinct yet flexible nonfictional genre, one possessing its own characteristics and contours that distinguish it from other literary forms. You will also work in this course on the craft of writing and revising your own personal essays. To these ends, we will be reading a number of works that demonstrate the essay’s protean adaptability. Texts will be drawn from Phillip Lopate’s anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, as well as from other sources, including selected blogs, nonfictional texts by visual artists, as well as the online compilation Quotidiana. (H/CS)(CWC). Prerequisites: LLC 101 and LLC 102.

Jazz: Contemporary African-American Writers

Course No. LLC 374  Credits: 3.0

This course will deal with a very select number of contemporary female and male African-American writers who have won outstanding awards from various national literary awards to The Nobel Prize. The selected authors are Toni Morrison, Patricia Raybon, John Edward Wideman and Edward P. Jones. The central drift of this course will be concerned with today's multifarious significance of the complex black experience. It will therefore look into how all these writers combine a keen historical sense with a discerning aesthetic sensibility to explore afresh in a postmodernist sense the intriguing black experience with deep intellectual reflections. It will also examine how in relation to their individual subject-matters they all artistically problematize the aesthetic and philosophical questions about the thin line between fact and fiction, historical veracity and imaginative truth, and art and artifice. Our class selection will consist of four books published between 1984 and 2003. A number of videos will be shown for visual elucidation of the books' underlying concerns. Fulfills Humanities/Cultural Studies distribution requirement. Creative Writing Concentration course. Prerequisites: LLC 101 and LLC 102. Formerly LLC 374X.

Literature of the Americas

Course No. LLC 388 / HCS 388  Credits: 3.0

This course will survey the concurrent but separate developments of the literary traditions of North and South America. Taking Columbus' arrival on Hispaniola as our point of anchor, we will work backward to the Pre-Columbian original narrative forms, and forward through the written records of the complex colonial contexts of the literary art in both Americas. We will also trace the divergent results of the influences of European literature, following in each case the developments of such directions as we can identify in the prose and poetry of the colonial and postcolonial periods of each America. Reading widely and also closely, we will consider how best to trace the parallel emergence of these national literatures, seeking in a juxtaposed study what common literary and extra-literary antecedents and shaping forces the texts in both traditions may reveal. We will also inquire into the nature of the distinctions that must be made between these traditions, and into the impact the differences between these literatures may have of the understanding of what we mean by the phrase "American literature." Fulfills Humanities/Cultural Studies distribution requirement. Creative Writing Concentration course. Prerequisites: LLC 101 and LLC 102.

Children's Literature

Course No. LLC 390  Credits: 3.0

Many adults feel they are familiar with the classic children’s books covered in this course, but actually know only sanitized versions, most produced for the movie screen. This class will examine the original texts of several well-known titles as literature and the fascinating and sometimes disturbing stories behind them. Critical reading, thought, research and writing on these texts will be among the key skills covered. Students will read extensively and discuss what they have read in class, create and deliver peer-evaluated presentations, and write a semester research paper related to the topics of the course. They will view several related films during the semester as well. Prerequisites: LLC 101 and LLC 102. Formerly LLC 390X.

Dialogue + Story

Course No. LLC 391  Credits: 3.0

In this course, we concentrate first on writing dialogues, looking at the ways in which conversation establishes character, creates and resolves conflict, and advances plot. We’ll see how these dialogues “play” first when we stage them, and then we put them back on the page and wrap stories around them. In-class, team-writing exercises are designed to jumpstart your ideas and provide working material. We’ll also take a look at excerpts from narratives by master storytellers, experiment with re-telling the story just through dialogue, and see how these artistic choices inevitably shape the content itself.

Fiction Writing

Course No. LLC 392  Credits: 3.0
Faculty Scott Lax

Fiction is the sustained application of the literary artist's imagination to the observation of life, and writing it well requires a vision of what's true in the story before it ever reaches the page. Fiction Writing provides the student with the opportunity to write short fiction, discuss technique, study master storytellers, and critique one another's work. Some weekly topics in writing technique take up the issues of narrative structure, clear meaning, turning story into plot, scene content and scene break, dialogue, conflict and tension, the power of point of view, the revelation of character, and rewriting. Over the course of the term, students work on three pieces of fiction. Fulfills Humanities/Cultural Studies distribution requirement. Creative Writing Concentration course.

Creative Writing

Course No. LLC 393  Credits: 3.0
Prerequisite(s) Writing + Inquiry I: Basic Composition + Contemporary Ideas | Writing + Inquiry I: Basic Composition + Contemporary Ideas | Writing + Inquiry II: Research + Intellectual Traditions | Writing + Inquiry II: Research + Intellectual Traditions

This course will give students the opportunity to explore the three essential genres of creative writing in a practicum setting. Study and practice will center on basic analytic methods for reading and basic inventive methods for writing short fiction, poetry, and dramatic narratives. Course assignments will include exercises in writing the short story, including the short graphic narrative; various poetic forms such as the sonnet, the villanelle, and the free verse poem; and variants of the short dramatic narrative such as the screen treatment, the story board, and the short film script. Creative Writing can be taken to satisfy either required junior/senior writing-intensive credit or open elective liberal arts credit. It will allow students who are planning visual arts careers involving writing (i.e., illustration, film, and video) to develop the basic critical and writing performance skills necessary for their professional advancement. Students who may be considering the Creative Writing Concentration program are strongly urged to take this course during their Sophomore year. Fulfills Humanities/Cultural Studies distribution requirement. Creative Writing Concentration course. Prerequisites: LLC 101 and LLC 102.