Course Description
Summary
The Scriptorium, a “place for writing,” is a class for writers interested in improving their critical essay-writing skills. We will read to write and write to read. Much of our time will be occupied with writing and revising—essai means “trial” or “attempt”—as we work to create new habits and productive strategies for analytical writing. As we write in various essay structures with the aim of developing a persuasive, well-supported thesis statement, we will also revise collaboratively, improve our research and citation skills, and study grammar and style. We will strive for clarity, concision, and expressiveness as we read and respond to a variety of historical and contemporary texts.
This Scriptorium is about world-building: multiverses, utopias, dystopias, alternative realities, dreamscapes. Why have so many creators—not just in our time but across the centuries—been drawn to the idea of world-building? What do fictional worlds say about our own? Conversely, what do they offer that cannot be found anywhere else? We will voyage across worlds portrayed in novels, short stories, films, and video games. Our readings and media may include primary works by Ursula Le Guin, N.K. Jemisin, Octavia Butler, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jonathan Swift, Jason Roberts, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Samuel Johnson, Alice Munro; and critical texts by Jenny Odell, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Benedict Anderson, Lauren Berlant, and Dora Zhang.
