ENGL 379
Writing Art Spring 2021
Division I
Cross-listed ENGL 379 / ARTH 379

This course is conceived primarily as an experiential adventure in creative forms of art writing. We’ll read several recent examples of such work (from writers including John Ashbery, Roland Barthes, John Berger, Teju Cole, Jorie Graham, Robin Coste Lewis, Eileen Myles, Ali Smith, Roberto Tejada, and John Yau) to get a sense of the range of approaches, from the ekphrastic poem to the essay to the novel, alive today; and we will spend considerable time in local museums, engaging intimately with works of art through various writing prompts, as you create your own creative responses to visual art. Along the way, we will work to historicize and theorize the relation between the verbal and visual arts, and to ask what looking at art brings to creative writing, as well as the ways creative writing might extend or alter the work of art history.