Listed in: English, as ENGL-223
Meghana Mysore (Section 01)
Autofiction is a term that has recently emerged in the literary landscape to describe works that blend the genres of fiction and autobiography and/or draw from the real lives of their authors. We will consider how these definitions might be limited to realistic writing that explicitly draws from an author’s life. We will interrogate the boundaries of genre, exploring the ways that autobiographical material might take a speculative approach and emotional truth can be fact. Does a narrator have to look or sound like oneself for a work to feel autobiographical? How might our ideas of autofiction reflect narrow conceptions of certain racial, sexual, socioeconomic or gender identities? In this course, we will construct a more expansive definition of autofiction, reading widely-considered autofictional novels by Rachel Cusk, Yiyun Li, Sigrid Nunez, Ocean Vuong, and Akwaeke Emezi, and essays from Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. We will practice the skills of reading as writers, considering questions of craft like characterization, structure, pacing, and voice in a novel’s construction. As this is a workshop-based course, students will have many opportunities to write, present, and get feedback on their own autofictional works, as well as comment upon the writing of their peers. Writing assignments will include frequent in-class exercises and short pieces for workshop that will culminate in a longer twenty to twenty-five page story or novel excerpt that reflects the writer’s complex engagement with the truth of their own identity and its presentation in fiction.
Limited to 15 students. Spring semester. Postdoctoral Fellow Mysore.
How to handle overenrollment: Registrar will randomly cut
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, reading as writers, craft analysis, creative thinking, artistic work
Section 01
Tu 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM BARR 102