Studies in English: Writing Grief and Loss--Writing Intensive

How can writing convey the contradictions and complexities of grief? How do we hold on and go on simultaneously? Can reading and writing challenge our cultural views on death by helping us discover new perspectives on love, time, and art? 

In this course, we’ll explore how writers have grappled with the universal yet painfully specific and often isolating experience of loss. We’ll plunge into a variety of texts—including personal essays, memoirs, films, and research—examining how literature and other media can shape our understanding of this fundamental aspect of the human experience. We'll also discuss how the grief process might inform choices on the page, and how those choices, in turn, might inform—and even transform—the journey.  

In a moment of global and local violence, climate catastrophe, and other communal losses, grief and anticipatory grief are not only individual, but collective and pervasive. We’ll read and write together in a supportive environment that honors the challenges of addressing grief. We’ll create a collective space for learning—together—how to live in unlivable times, how to bear an unbearable world, and how to cultivate joy without casting grief aside. 

Assignments will include a notebook of weekly writing exercises and responses, a short paper, and a final project. For final projects, you will choose to do either a creative project, a critical paper, or another form that you propose, as long as it meets the writing requirements.