Matthew Goulish

If we define the ordinary as that which we can safely overlook, or that which we value most when it recedes from our attention, how can we consider such ordinariness, in language or image or event, as a generative, creative foundation? This course offers selected examples of American writing that concern aspects of the ordinary, formulated and structured according to principles of the ordinary, while considering how the ordinary differs for different people. A partial course reading list includes fiction by Amina Cain, Remedios Varo, Clarice Lispector, and Renee Gladman, poetry by Ed Roberson, Diane Seuss, and Robert Creeley, and nonfiction prose by Charles Olson. Students will participate in in-class writing sessions, take a midterm vocabulary test, and present their work twice through the semester for classroom feedback.

This course examines writing formulated and structured according to systems of thought and expression. The nine trans-disciplinary system types presented in the class derive from various modes and technologies of language and presentation: abecedarium, collection, calendar, dialectic, experiment, lipogram, palimpsest, substitution, transposition.

Case studies of system-based writing include works by Richard Powers, Andrea Rexilius, Gertrude Stein, Cesar Vallejo (tr. Joseph Mulligan), Renee Gladman, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko (tr. Ana Lucic and Shushan Avagyan), and Jay Wright. Further references include Jen Bervin, Ann Hamilton, Viktor Shklovsky, and Kenzaburo Oe.

Each student will make two presentations during the semester: a primary presentation of work; a response (the following week) to the primary presentation of another; or a response to one of the readings. All presentations last a maximum 15 minutes, happen in the room, and involve language and the systems discourse in some way. Students also participate in three in-class writing sessions through the semester.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.