Expository Writing (105-0-21)
Topic
Writing Trash
Instructors
Agam Balooni
Meeting Info
University Library 4722: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:20PM
Overview of class
If you've ever encountered a fictional monster, or enjoyed a horror story, chances are you were reading a gothic text. Originally considered to be a form of trash writing, the genre now manifests itself in various cultural forms: novels, short stories, movies, poems, theatre, and graphic novels. Gothic texts thrive on depicting the unspeakable horrors and pleasures that make up our psychological lives. Unsurprisingly, then, they have been hugely popular across history. They make great examples of how popular writing has served as a medium for authors to think through complex and broad-ranging issues, engaging questions of identity, race, gender, and sexuality.
Writing Trash looks at gothic literature to think through the following questions: how do we write, and how do we write better? In this course, we will examine a few exemplary instances of gothic writing — such as Jekyll and Hyde, and Destroyer — to illuminate and demystify the process of expository writing. Our insights about gothic literature will serve as material for understanding and asking questions about how we practice the art of writing. What constitutes ‘good' and ‘bad' writing, and who decides? What is style? What is the relation between fictional or creative writing and expository or critical writing? Our chosen gothic texts will allow us to see how writing to tell a story involves careful use of the raw materials of language: vocabulary, syntax, style. In turn, Writing Trash will inculcate a practice of thinking about the writing process that you can take away and apply further in telling stories that are important to you.
Class Materials (Required)
Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 978-0141439730
Victor LaValle, Destroyer, 978-1684150557