"Rdng&Wrtng Stories from Margin" - Freshman Seminar

Instructors

• Penny Gail Hirsch - 847/491-4969 - Kresge 2-210

Meeting Info

• Kresge Centennial Hall 2-315 - MoWeFr 9:00AM - 9:50AM

• Overview of class

  What do we learn when we hear stories from people who are marginalized by society; or when we write about our own experiences with marginalization? The goal of this seminar is to answer those questions while becoming more enlightened and skillful writers ourselves. Toward that end, we will read narratives of survival and protest by people who have been marginalized by race, gender, poverty, politics, religion, war, or prison. As we do this reading, we will also look at (a) philosophical issues, such as the relationship between stories and "truth" (what the line between fiction and non-fiction?) and (b) literary issues, such as whether mainstream stories are any different from "stories from the margins." Then, focusing particularly on narratives related to our country and astonishingly high rate of incarceration, we will examine the power of stories to reshape our understanding of contemporary issues.
  
  

  Papers will involve analysis of personal experience, such as how you have benefited from, or have been challenged by, marginalization, as well as analysis and arguments based on research, exploring whether or how stories from the margin challenge our views of ourselves and the world.

• Teaching Method

  Discussion and workshop

• Evaluation Method

  Three papers and a short final reflection (approximately 25 pages total). All papers will be written in stages and revised. Quarter grades will cover writing (approximately 70%) and class participation (30%, including attendance and online discussion).

• Class Materials (Suggested)

  READING will include works like the following:
  
  
  
  
  • Andrew Pham, Catfish and Mandala: A 2-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam
  
  
  • Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
  
  
  • Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis and selections from Art Spiegelman
  
  
  • Selections from George Orwell, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Pearl Cleage, Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros
  
  
  • Excerpts from Reading Across Borders: Storytelling and Knowledges of Resistance by philosopher Shari Stone-Mediatore
  
  
  • Excerpts from War on the Family: Mothers in Prison and the Families They Leave Behind by criminologist and sociologist Renny Golden
  
  

• Class Attributes

  No P/N option for this section
  
  

• Enrollment Requirements

  Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for Freshmen and Sophomores
  Add Consent: Department Consent Required
  Drop Consent: Department Consent Required
  

Current as of 06/14/13 11:32:32 PM

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