Techniques of Nonfiction
ENGL 292
Fall 2026
| Section:
01
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| This course may be repeated for credit. |
In this introductory workshop on nonfiction writing -- which has also been termed the literature of fact -- we will read personal essays and profiles, writing about place and experimental prose. The writers you will study join a compulsion to bear witness to a commitment to style. They also, invariably, investigate the status of the facts they are documenting or representing. Reading these texts, we will ask: How do they ask us to understand nonfiction writing? What strategies do they use to assert and/or undermine their own authority? What is the relationship between fact and imagination in this work? How might we articulate an ethics of nonfiction writing? Over the semester, you will work on exercises, experiments, and longer essays, and build a critical vocabulary for analyzing your own and one another's writing. Lydia Davis has said: "You need at least two brains to write. You need to ... [work] intuitively and at the same time remain in some kind of control." This semester, you will learn to follow your best intuitions and to develop a more controlled editorial eye. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (English) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
1. Natalie Diaz, ¿Fusings¿ in Borders, Human Itineraries, and All Our Relation
2. Zeyn Joukhadar ¿An Incomplete History of Trans Immortality¿ and ¿Starting Testosterone During Ramadan Led me to the Sacred in My Trans Self¿ (pdfs provided)
3. Jeremy Atherton Lin, Gay Bar
4. McKenzie Wark, Raving
5. Hilton Als, My Pinup
6. Pedro Lemebel, A Last Supper of Queer Apostles
7. Paul B. Preciado, An Apartment on Uranus and Orlando, My Political Biography (film)
8. Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
9. Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Borealis
10. Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts
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Examinations and Assignments:
TBD |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course contributes to the fulfillment of ENGL major requirements: CW requirement, CW path (but not 300-level or upper-level workshop), elective.
The English department highly recommends that students be enrolled in only one CW course in a semester. If you are admitted to more than one CW course, the department requests that you choose one and let the instructors know during Adjustment Period. By doing so you will be considerate of instructors and other students.
*This course will be taught by Professor Lars Horn. |
| Instructor(s): Vogel,Danielle Times: ...W... 08:50AM-11:40AM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 2 | JR major: 2 | | |
| Seats Available: 10 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 0 | JR non-major: 1 | SO: 5 | FR: 5 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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