51��������

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 explore anthropologist Mary Douglas’s idea: “Just as it is true that everything symbolizes the body, so it is equally true (and all the more so for that reason) that the body symbolises everything else.” We will read model examples of theory and criticism on the body with a focus on race, gender, and sexuality studies. As we practice various essay structures with the aim of developing a persuasive, well-supported thesis, we will also revise collaboratively, improve our research skills, and study grammar. Our aim is to learn to write with complexity, imagination, accuracy. Readings may include the following authors: Melville, Hurston, Foucault, Bhabha, Berger, Hayden, Wittig, Fanon, Gilman, Haraway, Douglas, Butler, Rankine, Chang.