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Course Description

Summary

Our scriptorium, a place for writing, will function as a class for beginning writers and for those students who want to improve their essay skills. We will read to write and write to read, following the originator of the form, Montaigne. Much of our time will be occupied with writing probatively, as "essai" means trial or attempt. This class will study model examples of theory and criticism, with a focus on culture, gender, and sexuality studies. We will practice various essay structures with the aim of developing a persuasive, well-supported thesis; in addition, we will revise collaboratively and study grammar. Our aim is to learn to write more genuinely and with complexity, imagination, accuracy. Readings may include the following authors: Woolf, Freud, Berger, Foucault, Kosofky Sedgwick, Barthes, Sontag, Haraway, hooks, Mulvey, Butler.