Suzanne Scanlon

The First Year Seminar Program at SAIC gives students the opportunity to develop their analytical writing skills while studying compelling subject matter. Consequently, this course plays two roles. First and foremost, it serves as a writing studio, a forum in which students develop their capacity to construct effective written arguments. The course also explores contemporary world events in detail; the analysis of this material provides the grist for student writing in the course. Modern technology allows for the nearly instantaneous distribution of news and images around the world. As a result, people in the twenty-first century are bombarded with information about contemporary events. However, much of this information has a superficial character: a dizzying array of media, ever concerned with viewership, stresses drama and controversy over context and complexity. Further, the treatment of events often reflects the agenda of the medium providing that treatment. In this course, we will look at global issues in depth, with particular attention to historical context. We will also seek multiple perspectives as we wrestle with the intricacies of diplomacy and war; commerce and culture. Specific topics of study will proceed from what is happening in the world, and students will be required to explore a variety of different news sources as the basis for their writing. Written assignments will include 15-20 pages of formal work, including weekly journal entries and three short papers.

Fernando Pessoa in Lisbon, Virginia Woolf in London, Frank O¿Hara in New York City; writers, philosophers and artists of all kinds have long created, expanded, and contracted themselves through walking the city. We will spend this semester walking and reading and writing fiction structured around the movement of the self in the city. We will consider the walk as form and content. We¿ll read short-and long-form works to examine how writers work¿contracting and expanding time, organizing structure, shifting among points of view, creating spaces, and controlling tensions¿so that you can develop skills and craft your own fictions. Students will write three new works of fiction over the course of the semester, to be developed into a final portfolio.