ENG 535 Reading & Writing Prose: Contemporary
The course opens with a review of expository writing, specifically the "narrative" form. We focus on contemporary literature, but we also review the historical and literary characteristics of narratives. The course defines themes such as class, youth (coming of age), race, identity, gender, and politics to help students better understand how prose has evolved over time: our goal is to determine how the "narrative" has transformed literature overall. Students write and workshop their versions of contemporary literature and read writers, such as Walker, Ha Jin, Silko, Aidoo, Wolff, Boranski, Clive James, Wansuh, Pamuk, Wright, Adichie, Thiong’o, Head, Saadawi, Celen, Cook, and Yehuda.