Humanities and Expressive Arts I: Theme - Reading and Writing Fiction

We take in stories, and works of fiction, all day. How do we get meaning out of what we read – whether it’s a novel, a comic book, an animated show like Avatar:The Last Airbender, or a short story or play? How do we know what a work of fiction is about? How do we know what the author is trying to get us to think or feel? 

And ... what even is fiction? Is it simply a piece of writing or storytelling that is “not true” or “not real”? A made-up story? A lie? What are the differences among the assumptions we make when we read fiction and the assumptions we can make when we read nonfiction? What does it mean when a character in a novel does or say something that defies our expectations for good behavior or our current social norms? What does it tell us about the author? About the times in which the work was written? About our time – and ourselves? 

In this course, we will read novels and short stories (and perhaps look at plays and films) by historical and contemporary authors with an eye to what fiction is and does; what the role is of fiction in a vibrant intellectual and literary culture, what the job of an author working in fiction is, and how we should read and understand fiction – and how we might write it ourselves. What is the role of the novelist? Is it to entertain us? Provoke us? Teach us? And what is the responsibility of the artist, particularly of the literary artist, to society? Is it to advance political agendae? To question them? Attack them? Ignore them? 

We will read novels and short stories, and perhaps read or view a play or film or two. And we will write (nonfiction!) in response. And we will write fiction in response. We will have some in-class and at-home exercises and short assignments in writing fiction, and a major project in which we will write a bit of literary critique or create our own work of fiction.