Hello.
For fall semester 2024, I will be teaching two courses in Literary Arts at Brown. Both of these courses are centered in fiction and are classes in creative writing that ask you to think in interdisciplinary ways. This page explains how to apply for a seat in one or both courses and offers some context for choosing between them.
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1} THE ILLIBERAL IMAGINATION (aka LITR 1153A), Tuesdays at 4pm
This is a course on contemporary fiction, political theory, and how to use writing and literature to understand the time we are living in.
What do an artist and a politician have in common? One person might say that they both make things up. Another might claim that both aim to tell truths that unite audiences. Bearing this genre-related ambiguity in mind, this course will explore the description of illiberal and anti-progressive political ideals and systems—particularly, although not exclusively, in narrative fiction. This class is therefore also about the strategies politicians, novelists, and others use to shape our sense of what is real and to argue for particular accounts of what is valuable, just, and possible, as well as how human life should be led. We will consider the work of Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis, Colleen Hoover, R.F. Kuang, George Orwell, Thomas Pynchon, Ayn Rand, and the Marquis de Sade, among others, and compose our own dystopian or otherwise politically engaged fictions.
2} (IN)VISIBLE CITY (aka LITR 1010A, Advanced Fiction), Wednesdays at 3pm
This is an advanced fiction workshop course in which we will be exploring the built environment of Providence, RI. We will quite literally walk around the city and experience its strange and elaborate buildings and history first hand. We will take inspiration from walks, talks, and the material culture of this place to create new fictions, and we will also read fiction and critical theory tied to architecture and design. You will come away from this course with fresh ideas about the interrelation of the built environment and literary practice, as well as a deeper understanding of Providence's complex past and that of the two major universities located here. Finally and most importantly, you will generate and revise an original piece of fiction.
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IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO APPLY FOR ONE OR BOTH OF THESE COURSES:
Respond to one or both of the writing prompts below and email your piece(s) of no more than 500 words to lucy_ives@brown.edu by 5pm ET on Wednesday, September 4, 2024. Use the subject line "Imagination" if applying for this course, "City" if applying for this course, or "Imagination City" if applying for both.
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FOR THE ILLIBERAL IMAGINATION:
Counterworlds
Begin by choosing one of three options:
1} dystopia
2} utopia
3} negative utopia *
( * utopia written as such for satirical ends, the [insert bright, sarcastic voice] “best of all possible worlds!”)
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Now imagine a society that falls into the category you have chosen. Respond to the following prompts:
Describe a sport played in this world. Describe a major holiday. Describe a type of shoe currently in fashion. Describe a political party and its current platform.
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FOR (IN)VISIBLE CITY:
Exercise for Writing from Memory
A note about the spirit in which you may wish to respond to the five instructions/prompts below: If you don’t remember or know something, that’s OK. Try to stick with that feeling rather than trying to work through it or against it. Devote 100 words to what you realize you don’t know or remember—or, more than that. You may discover something unexpected.
The exercise:
1} Describe your earliest memory.
2} Describe something that happened yesterday.
3} Describe something that happened a week ago yesterday.
4} Describe something that happened five years ago yesterday.
5} Describe something you have completely forgotten
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I look forward to reading your work.