Literary It Girls: Joan Didion, Eve Babitz, and the Personal Essay
WRCT 284
Spring 2026
| Section:
01
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This reading-intensive seminar explores the personal essay as a form of public-facing literature through the iconic work of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz. Both writers turned lived experience into sharp, stylish cultural critique -- crafting essays that are as much about perception and voice as they are about events. Reading essays each week, students will closely analyze how Didion and Babitz shape persona, modulate tone, and render the personal legible within larger social and political landscapes. Topics include the aesthetics of cool detachment, intimacy as a rhetorical strategy, and the role of the "literary it girl" in shaping 20th-century literary culture. Throughout, the course asks what it means to write personally for a public audience, and how voice becomes both self-expression and social commentary. The semester culminates in a critical-creative essay on a contemporary literary figure of the student's choosing who continues this legacy. |
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| Credit: .5 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA WRCT |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
| SECTION 01 |
Instructor(s): STAFF
Times: .M.W... 01:20PM-02:20PM; Location: 116MTV108; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 12 | | SR major: 0 | JR major: 0 | | |
| Seats Available: 0 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 3 | FR: 3 |
| 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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