Paradoxes of Form & Freedom in Narrative Nonfiction: A Four-Part Seminar

Download course readings (PDF) (opens in new tab)

all texts are in the readings packet except Weschler, Calamities of Exile and Mitchell, Up in the Old Hotel (books to be procured separately)

October 5 (Form) download supplemental readings (PDF) (opens in new tab)
Dave Eggers, "Impressions" from McSweeney's (first issue)
John McPhee, "Los Angeles Against the Mountains" (Part I)
Ian Frazier, "Canal Street"

October 12 (Form) download supplemental readings (PDF) (opens in new tab)
Susan Sheehan, A Missing Plane (Part II)
Lawrence Weschler, "My Grandfather's Last Tale"
Ernst Toch, Letter to a would-be composer

October 19 (Freedom) download supplemental readings (PDF) (opens in new tab)
Grace Paley, "A Conversation with My Father"
Wyslawa Szymborska, "Could Have"
Stanislaw Lem, "Impossibilitate Vitae" from A Perfect Vacuum
Ellen Pall, "Painting Life into Sammy"
Ian Frazier, "Nobody better, Better than Nobody" (Heloise)
Passage from Chapter 10 of Family
*Lawrence Weschler, Breytenbach profile from Calamities of Exile

October 26 (Bringing it all together) download supplemental readings (PDF) (opens in new tab)
*Joseph Mitchell, "Joe Gould's Secret" from Up in the Old Hotel