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Course Descriptions
Literature Courses
Workshops and Writing & Creative Writing Courses
Publishing Courses
Design Courses
Special Topic Courses
Thesis
Literature Courses
GEP 7000/CRW 7000 Seminar in Contemporary Women Writers
The best of women writing now. In a selection of contemporary American women writers, we'll examine current themes, obsessions, and interpersonal dynamics. We'll read fiction writers such as Karen Outen, Danzy Senna, and Maureen Howard, memoirists such as Vivien Gornick, playwrights such as Wendy Wasserstein, and poets such as Adrienne Rich, Louise Gluck, Toi Derricotte, Sharon Olds, and Sandra Kohler.
GEP 7001/CRW 7001 Ethnic Women's Literature
A study of women writers and how their ethnic identities affect their work. Students will read work by fiction writers such as: Jhumpa Lahiri, Danzy Senna, Maureen Howard, and Nancy Zafris, memoirists such as Kate Millett, Vivien Gornick, and Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, playwrights such as Wendy Wasserstein, and poets such as Adrienne Rich, Louise Gluck, Toi Derricotte, and Louise Erdrich.
GEP 7005/CRW 7005 Seminar in Modern Poetry
A course that extensively addresses the major poetic voices of the twentieth century with special emphasis on the close reading of the experimental and innovative.
GEP 7008/CRW 7008 Seminar in Fiction Since 1940
An analysis of contemporary experimental fiction since 1940. The seminar will focus primarily on the study of narrative technique and analysis of the primary texts; some theoretical and contextual ideas of postmodernism will be touched on as means to further appreciate and evaluate readings. Authors include: Barth, Borges, Nabokov, Coover, Calvino, Garcia Marquez, Morrison, Baker, McCarthy, DeLillo, Martone, and Auster.
GEP 7010/CRW 7010 Seminar in Victorian Readings
An intense study of the major novels, poetry, and prose stylists of the Victorian era. The course will consider authors such as Browning, Tennyson, Carlyle, Newman, Arnold, Dickens, Eliot, and Thackeray.
GEP 7015/CRW 7015 Seminar in Eighteenth-Century Poetry and Prose
A study of the social, historical, and aesthetic concerns of the eighteenth century. Representative genres provide an understanding of the shifting focus of this period from satire to sensibility.
GEP 7017/CRW 7017 Seminar in the American Renaissance: 1820-1860
Readings in Cooper, Melville, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman. This course will examine the varieties of Romantic writing in America.
GEP 7025/CRW 7025 Seminar in Medieval Readings
A consideration of the medieval signature as it appears in late antiquity, flourishes in the Middle Ages, and leaves its traces in modernity. Some attention will be given to manuscript form and to those textual changes occasioned by the arrival of print.
GEP 7030/CRW 7030 Seminar in the Modern Novel
An exploration in depth of the literary condition called Modernism through an investigation of the work of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, and William Trevor.
GEP 7031/CRW 7031 Classical Readings
A study of ancient Greek and Latin writers in the genres of epic, lyric poetry, and prose. Selections include Homer (Iliad), Vergil (Aeneid), Ovid (Metamorphoses), Plautus (The Brothers Menaechmus), Plato, and Sophocles (Electra) in translation. Since the purpose of this course is to ground the student in the material that was the common repertory for western authors, the course will also study works, such as Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, and Donna Tartt's The Secret History, which have drawn both source material and inspiration from classical texts.
GEP 7035/CRW 7035 Masterpieces in European Drama
From ancient Greece to contemporary Ireland, drama is rooted in the age during which it is born. Through the action and the characters of a drama, the playwright shares his or her view of the nature of life and suggests an age's assessment of what it means to be human. This course will focus on a selection of the great European playwrights, such as Wilde, Shaw, Euripedes, Marlowe, Moliere, Ibsen, Chekhov, Brecht, and Friel.
GEP 7041/CRW 7041 Introduction to Critical Theory: Exploring Meaning
This course will introduce students to the discipline of critical thought and its use in the study of literature and art, particularly the concept of how meaning is shaped and interpreted by both the individual and society at large.
GEP 7045/CRW 7045 Self-Portraits in Literature
How do writers shape their experience and try to define themselves in their art? We will explore these questions by reading memoirs such as Virginia Woolf's Moments of Being, Marjorie Keenan Rawling's Cross Creek, Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Sons' First Year, Richard Wertime's Citadel on the Mountain, and Kate Millett's AD, as well as poets such as Yeats, Robert Lowell, and Adrienne Rich. Artists and photographers such as Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Imogen Cunningham and Becky Young will supplement discussions of literature with some attention to self-portraits. Students will keep a journal for the initial weeks of class. They will draw from that journal to transform their experience into a short story, poem, or short memoir.
GEP 7050/CRW 7050 The Irish Novel
This course will explore the rich literary traditions of Ireland in relation to the novel. Through the works of Irish authors, such as James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Flann O'Brien, Emma Donoghue, and Roddy Doyle, we will examine Ireland's continual struggle to construct a usable national identity in both her fiction and her history.
GEP 7055/CRW 7055 Shakespeare in Performance: From Page to Stage
Employing the techniques of John Barton (Royal Shakespeare Company) and Patsy Rodenburg (Royal National Theatre), students will discover and experience the performance language of 3 plays: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo & Juliet, and Macbeth. These techniques transform the dynamics of these texts -- structure, rhythm, and imagery -- into specific and clear action, so that the text can be brought to life physically and emotionally.
GEP 7060/CRW 7060 Seminar in The Bloomsbury Group
Movies like A Room With a View and Mrs. Dalloway highlight the talents of two members of one of the most brilliant circles of friends ever: the Bloomsbury Group. In addition to the novelists E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf, this group, which flourished in England in the first half of the twentieth century, includes painters, art critics, essayists, and the great economist John Maynard Keynes. We will concentrate on novelists (E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West) and non-fiction writers (Lytton Strachey, Harold Nicholson, Virginia Woolf). However, we will also consider paintings, decorative arts, and garden design (Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Vita Sackville-West) to uncover the shared aesthetics and artistic cross-fertilization among these talented friends.
GEP 7065/CRW 7065 From Hansel's Oven to the Fire: Perceptions of Witchcraft in Literature
This course will study the witch as a stock character of literature and how that character is shaped by each author who writes it. This course will examine the portrayal of the witch in fairytales, novels, plays, comic books, and film, paying close attention to how the character of the witch is adapted to the specific message and symbolism of each particular work she appears in. Reading selections include Shakespeare's Macbeth, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick, Emma Donoghue's Kissing the Witch, and the Harry Potter series.
GEP 7070/CRW 7070 Film: Adaptation of Literature to Film
Like the translator, the adaptor who translates a classic work of literature for the screen is engaged in an act of transformation which requires him or her to balance the narrational, thematic, and stylistic elements of one moment in a text with those in another and to choose from this nexus of interaction and meaning a solution that is cinematically equivalent to the original situation. The central aim of this course then is to examine the challenging process of translating literature to film and to determine either the richness or the impoverishment of adaptations based on the works of celebrated authors.
Workshops and Writing & Creative Writing Courses
CRW 7100 Workshop: Prose
A workshop that concentrates on fiction. Students will evaluate their own and others' work in a supportive atmosphere, while examining the tools of the prose writer's art and reading the published work of successful fiction writers. Particular emphasis will be placed be on the craft of fiction and how content should be used to inform form and vice versa. Students may choose to submit a variety of fictive forms for critique, including short stories, flash fiction, and excerpts from novels.
CRW 7105 Literary Writing in Journalism: Feature Writing
This course will examine writing in the popular narrative style of today's journalism, known as the "New Journalism," developed by such writers as Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, Joe McGinniss, and Ryszard Kapuscinski. In studying such authors, we will analyze their styles and the manner in which they use techniques usually associated with fiction to create compelling works that are both literary and journalistic. In addition, we will discuss the ethical issues involved when writers use the resources of fiction to describe non-fiction.
CRW 7110 Magazine Writing
A course which enters the world of professional magazine writing by learning how to identify a good, salable idea, by researching it, and by writing and marketing it. Non-fiction of all types, including magazine-length feature writing, is the foundation upon which the other skills are based.
CRW 7115 Newswriting
Learn how to find story ideas, interview people, and make sense of the world as you write quickly and clearly for daily and weekly newspapers. Traditional and offbeat news will be examined, while creativity, ethics and professional standards will be stressed. Read examples of great writing as you learn techniques to improve your own.
CRW 7120 Workshop: Poetry
A workshop course concentrating on poetry. This course concentrates on the craft of writing the poem. Students will work on their poetry and then evaluate their own and others' work in a supportive atmosphere. Each semester, the poetry workshop may concentrate on specific aspects of the poet's art, such as studying the techniques of a specific poetic genre or movement (e.g., the Romantics); focusing on specific methods or aspects of creating poetry, such as subverting sentimentality; or investigating larger issues of the poetic life, such as creating a chapbook or thematic collection of poetry.
CRW 7125 Play Writing
A workshop course in which students write their own plays. Emphasis is placed upon dramatic rules and current theatrical practices.
CRW 7140 Writing Entertainment Reviews
Students will learn how to write meaningful, in-depth reviews, and we will see at least three live performances during class. Students can expect to have directors and some performers available to answer questions from the class, and we will learn how to do the research necessary to ask thoughtful questions.
CRW 7145 Workshop: Creative Nonfiction
A workshop course concentrating on creative nonfiction. Students will study the published work of others in this genre, engage in writing exercises, and craft work of their own to be critiqued by their fellow students. Ethical issues, especially as it pertains to memoirs, will be explored. Each semester, the creative nonfiction workshop may vary from a general workshop encompassing a variety of forms within the genre to specialized workshop that focuses on a specific aspect of the genre, including memoir, the personal and literary essay, opinion pieces and narrative nonfiction.
CRW 7165 Workshop: Novel Writing
A workshop that concentrates on the craft of writing a novel. Students will evaluate their own and others' work in an intense, but supportive, atmosphere that is focused on addressing the particular issues inherent in creating longer works.
Publishing Courses
CRW 7210 Marketing of the Book
In order to survive in the publishing business, whether from the standpoint of an author, publisher, agent, or editor, one must know how to market the material to the consumer at hand. This course will focus on the marketing approaches of those in the business today, help to identify the particular audience for the specific genres, and ascertain how to reach that audience.
CRW 7211 Books from Writer to Reader: An Overview of the Art of Writing and Publishing
Walk through the proces by which an author's words become a book in the hands of a reader. Follow a piece of writing "your own and others" through all its growth stages, from its conception to its submission by a literary agent; to contract negotiations and acquisition by an editor; through an editorial process to design and production; to marketing, publicity, promotion, advertising, sales, special sales, and distribution into a bookstore. The primary focus is the initial act of writing and trade publishing, i.e., publishing books with market appeal to readers.
CRW 7220 Magazine Publishing
A consideration of the strategies and game plans at work in the mass magazine marketplace today. Drawing on examples from print, electronic, cyberspace, and traditional media, the course will detail the issues, theories, techniques, and financial realities that determine the success or failure of magazines.
CRW 7230 Magazine: Special Topics
A course that is part of the magazine sequence. The topic chosen is related to what is current in the magazine industry at the time the course is offered.
CRW 7235 Publishing Opportunities in Modern Magazines
This course is designed to offer experience to beginning and intermediate writers in publishing in the magazine market, including letters to the Editor, departments, fiction, personal essays, features, and poetry. Discussions will cover finding and evaluating appropriate markets for a writer's work, approaching editors with well-crafted queries, negotiating contracts, and delivering quality work. Students will write and prepare a manuscript for submission to a magazine of their choice.
CRW 7240 From Gumshoe to Silicon: Reporting in the Internet Era
Computers and the Internet have revolutionized the ability of reporters and others to gather direct source information and data. The ease of access to these information sources, however, raise many issues for journalists. These range from the fundamental question of relevance in an era of info saturation, to the more critical issues of how reporters can distill this into stories that matter to readers and viewers. This class will examine both new methods of gathering source information from databases and the Internet, and explore methods of turning that basic information into relevant news stories.
CRW 7245 Contemporary Literature & Publishing for Children
In this course, we will survey past and present American literature for children and adolescents. We will study the various genres of children's books and learn about various trends in publishing books for children and teens. Students should be prepared to read a large number of children's books over the course of the semester.
CRW 7260 Maintain and Operate a Small Publishing Company
This course will orient the students in the practical information application of running their own small publishing company. It will follow the stages of setting up a company, then of following a book through all aspects of production, marketing and sales. Emphasis would be put on the importance of choosing a niche market to allow for reduced marketing and advertising expenses.
CRW 7265 Getting Published
This course will demystify the process of publication. Designed to guide the writing student through the procedures and protocols of submission, the course is split into three sections: newspapers, magazines, and books. For each section, students will do exercises, which will teach them how to know their market; cultivate contacts; submit queries, proposals, and completed pieces; and handle follow-up.
CRW 7270 Working with Agents and Editors
Publishing is an interpersonal activity about which many writers need much more knowledge. Most agents and editors note as their greatest problem, the fact that writers seem to lack the knowledge of how agencies and editors function, and thus have no real knowledge of how they all work together. This course will lay out in detail the functions of editors, agents, and the writers in the collaborative process that gets a book published, markets that book, and continues on to new levels in the future work between all three.
Design Courses
CRW 7315 Visual Literacy: The Language of Image
Embedded in the arts are crucial communication and problem solving skills. The language of image can often communicate what we cannot express in words and opens us to additional knowledge and understanding. This class, specifically developed for the non-artist, will reveal those skills and translate them into creative tools for the workplace.
CRW 7340 Digital Video for the Web
A foundation course that will cover the basics of creating your own video. Students will be given a CD with raw video footage and will learn the techniques of editing with computer software. Inputting and editing sound will also be covered. Students will also be given the opportunity to use a video camera and learn how to input the video into the computer. The final product will be learning how to take the video and turn it into a quick time movie.
CRW 7341 Advanced Digital Video
(pre-requisite: CRW 7340 Digital Video) An intermediate course that will cover more advanced techniques for creating digital video. Students will gain experience using the editing software FinalCut Pro to edit and create digital movies.
GEP 7317 Creative Book Arts
A project-based course that bridges writing and creative design through the medium of the book. The course is an opportunity for students to push their creative capacity by exploring the content of writing, the stylistics of design and the sensual possibilities that link the two. Students explore different avenues by completing a series of assignments over the course of the semester that culminates in a final project. The course is comprised of equal parts writing, design and exploration, thereby pushing the definition of "book" to new limits. This course is designed to offer students an environment in which they can take new risks, learn from these risks, and apply the resulting knowledge to the development of their thesis. Traditional and non-traditional binding techniques and treatment of paper will be explored, as well as various other techniques, including but not limited to hand sewing, carbon transfer, scanning, use of found objects, wearable and/or edible books, and installation art.
Special Topic Courses
CRW 7420 Learning the Art: Acting for Writers
This course will explore dramatic techniques to enhance story and character development for those in the business of writing. Exercises will explore the realities of writing issues including storytelling, creating interest, developing believable characters, and writer's block. A significant portion of the course will focus on working with students on how to present their own work at readings.
CRW 7425 Surviving as a Writer
So you understand how to publish your work, but you still can't make enough money? Then it's time to understand the process of applying for grants, entering contests, attending writers' conferences, and going to artists' colonies. This course will teach students to broaden their understanding of the many opportunities available to an apprentice writer; and how, through careful exploration, networking, and tenacity, they can expand those opportunities all the more. Students will become familiar with the major writers' organizations, as well as with who's who in the industry today. Special attention will be paid to the difference between navigating the literary side and genre sides of the publishing world.
Thesis
CRW 7500 Thesis
The thesis is designed as a culminating experience that allows students to undertake the creation of an original work in the genre of their choosing. The thesis project should reflect the depth and breadth of the student's grasp on the craft of writing, and should produce a publishable work as its end result. Eligible students must secure a faculty thesis advisor and submit, for review and approval by the program director, a written plan for the thesis project. Thesis is open only to matriculated students in good academic standing (GPA of 3.0 or higher) who are within 12 credit hours of graduation.
Policies & Procedures Related to Thesis
- Students who are in good academic standing (GPA of at least 3.0) and who are within 12 credit hours of graduation are eligible to undertake their thesis.
- Eligible students create a thesis idea that is related to their specific focus within the field of Creative Writing: Poetry or Prose (Fiction or Creative Nonfiction).
Poetry: Candidates for the MFA degree in Poetry are required to prepare a manuscript of between 25 and 35 pages of poetry. The poems, of any length, should be grouped thematically in some way and the manuscript should show evidence of internal design. The thesis project should not just be a collection of unrelated poems. The poet should be ready to submit the finished product to publishers or to publication contests.
Prose: Candidates for the MFA degree in Prose (Fiction or Creative Nonfiction) are required to produce a manuscript of a minimum of 150 pages. This work can be a collection of short stories or creative nonfiction essays; a novella; or a full-length novel, memoir or other work. Students are permitted to exceed the 150-page minimum, particularly if they are producing full-length novels or creative nonfiction pieces. Short story and nonfiction essay collections should show evidence of being grouped in some thematic fashion. The author should be ready to submit the finished product to publishers, or to submit the individual essays and stories to literary journals and other publications.
Screenplays/Stage plays: While we are not currently offering a formal screenwriting/playwriting track in the MFA, students may choose to write a theatrical work for their thesis projects. These thesis projects must produce one full-length screenplay or stage play of approximately 90 - 120 minutes. The length of these projects should fall in the range of 100-130 pages.
- Students are responsible for identifying and obtaining the cooperation of a faculty advisor, who will supervise all phases of their thesis-related work.
- Following input from and discussion with the thesis advisor, students should prepare a 1-2 page thesis proposal, and submit this for approval to the program director. Once approved, this proposal will serve as the "blueprint" for the thesis project. Since creative work is always organic and of the moment, variations from the thesis proposal will be permitted as long as they are approved by the student's advisor and follow a sound rationale.
- After obtaining approval of the thesis proposal, the student may register for CRW 7500. The name of the thesis advisor must be included with the student's registration, and a copy of the approved thesis proposal must be sent to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies.
- Thesis registration is valid for one calendar year. After that time, if the student has not yet completed the thesis, he or she must withdraw from the thesis course. In order to continue work on the thesis, the student must register again and pay all relevant course fees a second time. Thesis registration is subject to the same course registration deadlines that apply to all other courses. Students may register for thesis a maximum of two times. If a student does not complete their thesis project by the end of the second registration period, a failing grade will be given for thesis. A total of 3 thesis credits are required for program completion; additional thesis credits may not be substituted for other program requirements.
- The completed thesis must meet the guidelines for the student's chosen genre of writing and must explore the thesis topic to the mutual satisfaction of the student and the thesis advisor. Students may not graduate from the program until they have satisfactorily completed their thesis project.