Course schedule for the Creative Writing Graduate Certificate Program, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

Course Schedule

MCW 490-0 : Special Topics: Writing About Migration — One's Own and That of Others

Description

This elective will investigate various types of contemporary and historical migrations (transnational and domestic, collective and individual, geographical and existential), while examining issues such as home and homeland, borders and belonging, diaspora and displacement, immigration and inheritance, xenophobia and racism, memory and movement, language and longing, trauma and triumph, exile and erasure, sacrifice and survival. We will enter into these topics by first asking “When — and with whom — does our own migration story begin?” and then pursue answers (known and imagined) in writing. From there, we will turn our attention to how poets, prose writers, and visual artists, representing a diverse range of backgrounds and identities, have used writing and art to make sense of their own narratives as well as those of others, while also striving to promote a heightened sense of recognition and empathy for migrants from their readers. Authors whose works we will study include Shailja Patel, Javier Zamora, Aracelis Girmay, Mohsin Hamid, Natalie Diaz, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Elizabeth Alexander, Zarina Hashmi, Darrell Bourque, Ocean Vuong, Carolyn Forché, and Hai-Dang Phan. Additionally, we will interrogate the politics of representation and voice, and of the difficulties and potential dangers of writing about others’ migration experiences. (This course is an elective, but may also be taken as a poetry workshop with the advance approval of the instructor and the student’s academic advisor.)