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 historical and contemporary interpretations of madness. In particular, we will explore how writers have used the theme of madness to investigate, represent, and understand larger social ills. We will study essays, short stories, novels, films, as well as brief histories and theories of madness. Our readings may include such authors as: Plato, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Frantz Fanon, Ernst Canetti, Vladimir Nabokov, Michel Foucault, and a series of essays by contemporary writers.
