Writing at Risk: Artistic Research and Creative Writing

Writing is a risky affair. It emerges from multiple possible beginnings, only to move towards unforeseeable ends.

 

”As long as the work is under construction,” writes Étienne Souriau, ”it is in jeopardy. At each moment, with each of the artist’s actions, or rather as a result of each of the artist’s actions, it can live or die.” ("Of the Mode of Existence of the Work To-Be-Made”, 229). This seminar explores the precarious existence of literary texts through an immersive, process-oriented engagement with writerly praxes, processes, and the politics of writing literature.

 

While the literary text is at risk throughout the stages of the writing process, the writer themself faces similar challenges. What is a writer after all? Where does writerly inspiration come from? What is good writing, or bad? This seminar tackles these questions through a creative-critical engagement with theoretical and literary texts on the practices, processes, and politics of writing.

 

 

Seminar objectives:
1) creative writing exercises offer an immersive engagement with processes and practices of textual production and artistic composition in its stages from first drafts to fully edited pieces;

2) critical readings of Siri Hustvedt's novel The Blazin World (2019) shed light upon the practices and gendered politics of artistic creation;

3) theories of writing and writerly praxes support these insights and translate them into an academic framework  

 

Students will need to buy a print or digital copy of Siri Hustvedt's The Blazing World (2019); all other course material will be made available via moodle.

 

This is a creative writing seminar. Students will be asked to write and share their writing in small groups.