MALS 209 WRITING THE OTHER: NARRATIVE AND INTERSECTIONS

In the last years we've seen that constructing a personal narrative has become an essential part of locating oneself on a confusing map. Narrative is about giving form to what had been invisible, and personal narrative places one on the inside. Rather than looking in, one is in, and looks out. Writing the "other" is a way of avoiding self-absorption; at the same time, one could say that it's eventually about writing oneself, perhaps the ultimate "other."

In this nonfiction creative writing course, students will be asked to avoid any "others" that the culture imposes and ask who really are the ones we don't know and maybe can never know. There's no end to the list we could make, and what we think we know may be vastly different from what we really do. Attentiveness is central to the process, and students will begin an investigation that may yield unexpected insights. As we engage in this process, our understanding is enlarged, and this, we could say, is the essence of empathy: we read, we listen, we write, and we come away more educated. The window we create is also a mirror, and the images we see are larger than the frames.

Instructor

Barbara Kreiger