Techniques of Nonfiction
ENGL 292
Spring 2026
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01
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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
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Examinations and Assignments:
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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. |
| Instructor(s): Cohen,Lisa Times: .M..... 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 0 | JR major: 0 | | |
| Seats Available: 15 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 0 | JR non-major: 0 | SO: 8 | FR: 7 |
| 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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