Intermediate Nonfiction: The Book-Length Essay
ENGL 325A
Fall 2026
| Section:
01
|
"[I]ntersection," writes Paul B. Preciado, "is the only place that exists. There are no opposite shores. We are always at the crossing of paths. And it is from this crossroad that I address you, like the monster who has learned the language of humans." From music, film, and art criticism to auto-theory, biography, travel writing, and even performance art, the book-length essay encompasses a range of genres, modes, styles, and voices. Often triple the length of long-form journalism, yet frequently slimmer than a book of essays or memoir, the book-length essay occupies an intermediary space. Like its fictional counterpart, the novella, it is a form of "betweens." A strange, twilight mode that expands within brevity, that forecloses endings as it stops short. It demands duration, sustained attention -- our close witnessing.
What, then, is afforded by the long duration of the book-length essay? By its demand for sustained and careful attention? And how might that duration find itself spiritually, politically, and ethically entangled? In this course, we will read diverse approaches to the book-length essay, examining how each author handles time, place, inquiry, research, characterization, and suspense. We will explore the techniques and methods by which the book-length essay constricts and expands its focus, balancing between specificity and breadth. Similarly, we will reflect upon the place of rupture, silence, and pause in what is supposedly a form of single trajectory as well as the ways in which authors ensure their text remain propulsive, surprising, and engaging across its length. So we will consider this formal "monster," an equinox, tidal boar, a waning gibbous that has somehow learnt the language of humans and speaks. We will listen to it, learn its language. And from that language we will ask what kinds of writing, meaning, and reading the book-length essay engenders and foregoes, what emerges when speech echoes from and toward elsewhere. |
|
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: ENGL224 OR ENGL228 ENGL278 OR ENGL292 OR ENGL326 OR ENGL266 |
|
Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
|
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
1. Christine Smallwood, La Captive
2. Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Borealis
3. Susan Moreira Marques, Now and at the Hour of Our Death
4. Hilton Als, My Pinup
5. Samuel R. Delaney, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue
6. Ay¿egül Sava¿, The Wilderness
7. Chet¿la Sebree, Field Study
8. Sophie Calle, The Sleepers
9. Jenny Boully, The Body: An Essay
10. Hervé Guibert, The Only Face
|
Examinations and Assignments:
TBD |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
If you have not taken one of the prerequisite courses and have other writing experience, please contact the instructor to request a pre-req override.
Contributes to fulfillment of ENGL major requirements: CW requirement, CW 300-level course, CW upper-level CW workshop, elective. The English department highly recommends that students be enrolled in only one Creative Writing course in a semester. If you are admitted to more than one Creative Writing 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... 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 12 | | SR major: 3 | JR major: 3 | | |
| Seats Available: 12 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 1 | 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 |
|
|