Nonfiction Laboratory

This course is for students who want to break free of the conventions of the traditional essay and memoir and discover the full range of narrative and stylistic possibilities available to nonfiction writers. During the first half of the semester, students will read and discuss examples of formally innovative nonfiction that will serve as the inspiration for brief assignments. During the second half of the semester, students will workshop longer pieces that they will have written in consultation with the instructor as a part of their conference work. Among the texts that will be discussed in class are Nathalie Sarraute’s memoir in two voices, Childhood; Susan Griffin’s double narrative, Red Shoes; George W. S. Trow’s dazzling exploration of the effects of television on political culture, Within the Context of No Context; Natalia Ginzburg’s disarmingly straightforward portrait of her marriage, He and I; Oscar Wilde’s brilliantly ironic (but also earnest) philosophical dialogue, The Decay of Lying; David Shields’s oddly moving Life Story, composed entirely of bumper sticker slogans; and “list essays” by Carole Maso and Eliot Weinberger.