Special Topics: Experiments in Biography
ENGL 215
Fall 2025
| Section:
01
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| Course Cluster and Certificates: Caribbean Studies Minor, Queer Studies |
In this course we will read a range of examples of shorter biographical writing (and some essays about this genre), focusing on experiments with this mode by U.S. writers of color, women, and queer practitioners who have been committed to broadening both its scope and its formal possibilities. As we analyze these attempts to capture a life on paper and to define this genre, you will work on short portraits and profiles of your own. Throughout the semester, we will ask: Whose lives get written, and by whom? What constitutes evidence of a life, according to whom? What gets left out? What sorts of facts and what kinds of language make someone live on the page? What kinds of research are necessary -- and possible? How does a writer's relationship to her subject inform such a portrait, and what are the ethics of that connection? |
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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
Readings will include work by Hilton Als, Sarah Broom, Georgina Kleege, Saidiya Hartman, Susan Orlean, and others
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Examinations and Assignments:
Several short profiles and revision |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Contributes to fulfillment of ENGL major requirements: Creative Writing Pathway: CW requirement, CW path course (but not 300-level course or upper-level workshop), elective.
Literature Pathway: Literary Geography requirement: American Literature, 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.
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| Instructor(s): Cohen,Lisa Times: ...W... 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 4 | | |
| Seats Available: 15 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 2 | JR non-major: 2 | SO: 3 | FR: 0 |
| 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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