Graduate Courses in Writing, Literature, & Publishing

4.00 Credits
The objective of this class is to study the development of a relatively recent sub-genre of poetry, namely, the poetic sequence. Defined very broadly by Rosenthal and Gall in their book, The Modern Poetic Sequence, this class will consider their definition that begins with the work of Whitman and Dickinson, and challenge some of their assumptions as we continue to study the history of the sequence as it evolves in the 20th and 21st centuries. In an effort to better understand the evolution of the sequence we will look at the work of modern and contemporary poets such as Eliot, Yeats, Roethke, Stevens, Heaney, Warren, Plath, Hudgins, and Glück. In the process we will attempt to puzzle out the difference between a long poem and a poetic sequence, and construct, if we can, a working definition.  We will also explore the difference between the narrative sequence and lyric sequence, and will discuss how the sequence, as a form, often seeks to address both narrative and lyric concerns and, therefore, complicates these definitions further.  

(SPRG09) Christine Casson 

4 Credits
Open to writers in all genres, this course will introduce students to a number of Boston area archives--including the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Boston Public Library Special Collections--and show them how to search there for subjects they may use in their work.  Online historical research will be treated as well.  There will be readings in historical fiction, historical narrative nonfiction, and historical narrative poetry.  Written work will include one research report and one creative piece derived from materials found in one or more archives. 

(SPRG09) Megan Marshall 

4 Credits
This course will focus on multi-genre texts by American Indian writers. I use the term "Native Lives" because these texts are not exactly autobiographies or memoirs, in the expected senses of those words, though they have important elements in common with those genres.  Most importantly, the texts we'll study simultaneously tell individual and communal stories, and do so by interweaving diverse genres.  They thus invite consideration of how texts and genres work internally, in relation to other texts and genres, and in relation to "external" realities (traditional cultures, history, other people's lives . . .).  We'll be considering our texts in terms of style, structure, story, and context; what they say or do, how they say or do it, and where, in what context(s). Texts will include: N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain (mythology and other oral tradition, documentary history, personal memory, illustration); Irvin Morris, From the Glittering World (mythology, documentary history, fictionalized history, "personal" memoir, short stories); Carter Revard, Winning the Dustbowl (poetry, nonfiction prose); Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Life Woven with Song (several nonfiction genres, poetry, drama); Leslie Marmon Silko, Storyteller (mythology and other oral tradition, poetry, fiction, memoir, photography).  

(FALL08) Robin Riley Fast 

4 Credits
The old bifurcated model that split the world into East and West has grown wearisome and is woefully insufficient as either an imaginative or descriptive tool.  We need new ways of thinking about how these spheres are constituted and how they interact with each other across all sorts of boundaries. In this new world we've got a Malaysian graphic novel featuring Chinese immigrants to Ipoh, a Japanese American memoir about Japanese of Brazillian birth moving back to Japan to work as second class citizens, and a stream of conscious novel about a group of multi-racial sexually active pre-teens wandering the slums of Honolulu.  We will attempt to find methods of understanding these "brave new worlds" and explore responsible and adequate narrative, filmic, and poetic modes of engaging with Asia/Pacific/Oceania.Beginning with the simple and outdated model of immigration and proceeding to discussions of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism we will consider the possibilities of identity within and arising out of the Pacific and we will consider what this might mean in our increasingly globalized and interconnected world.  We will read such established writers of the Asian diaspora as Maxine Hong Kingston along with newer (and queerer) voices such as Shani Mootoo and R. Zamora Linmark.  We will consider films from Aotearoa (New Zealand) and graphic novels from Malaysia, Hawaii, and North Korea.

(SPRG09) Roy Kamada 

4.00 Credits
We will study selected poems and ten of Shakespeare's plays, spanning his creative life from the early 1590's until the approach of his retirement from the stage.  The main focus will be on Shakespeare's language as symbolic action in theatrical performance, but we will also explore the uniquely Shakespearean features of character representation and dramatic form.  Our aim will be to approach Shakespeare's genius as a convergence of personal, social and institutional meanings.  This course is designed to be of value for graduate students in writing, theater and communication.  Previous study of Shakespeare is not required. 

(FALL08) Murray Schwartz 

4 Credits
The course surveys novels and short fiction from multicultural traditions in the Anglophone 'center' (the US, Britain, etc.) in tandem with works from respective places of cultural 'origin' (Mexico, India, Japan, etc.). An exemplary pairing might be Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake with Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines. Focus will be on the analysis of formal, stylistic, thematic, and cultural responses to the challenges of writing in and for overlapping local and global readerships and traditions.

(FALL08) Robert Dulgarian 

4 Credits
A course designed to acquaint students with what is happening in international as well as American short fiction.  We will read works in English and in translation in order to see what writers here and abroad have or do not have in common when it comes to concerns and stylistic approaches.  Short fiction from Third World countries is often (understandably) political, where English-language work is much less so. We will look at how the short form responds to the need for an agenda and how this affects choices made at the level of narrative structure.

(FALL08) Frederick Reiken  (SPRG09) William Donoghue 

4 Credits
This is a literature class for the serious writing student.  The course will operate on a simple premise:  that the most effective way to learn the craft of writing is to read and study literature with rigor and care. We will focus on the two pillars of prose, story and character, and on specific issues of craft such as point of view, dialogue, narrative summary and imagined scenes.  We will also investigate how writers exercise creativity and ingenuity in tackling various problems.  How can a flashback be set up and how, in a scene of dialogue, can a character's confusion and distress be realized?  How does one launch a story into motion; what techniques can be used to create and maintain suspense, and what techniques to build toward crucial revelations and climaxes? We will read a range of wonderful novels, including Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, Jennifer Haigh's Mrs. Kimble and Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex.

(SPRG09) Mako Yoshikawa 

4 Credits
This course explores several definitions of Magical Realism as an artistic mode that "combines realism and the fantastic in such a way that magical elements grow organically out of the reality portrayed" (Faris). The course focuses particularly on novels that transgress boundaries, "whether the boundaries are ontological, political, geographical, or generic" (Faris and Zamora).  Most novels in the reading list come from writers in Latin America, where the movement has enjoyed a boom, but we will also read others from the French speaking Caribbean and the United States.  Magical Realism will be discussed within its context of an encounter and confrontation of cultural values and conceptualization of history based on European, African and Indigenous ideologies. Issues of canon formation will be discussed. The first readings concentrate on the topic of Men Making History, while the second set of readings consider Feminist Conceptions of History and Society.  Given that most readings are firmly grounded in historical events, students will make presentations on the social, religious and political contexts for a better understanding of the novels.  Please consult the readings on reserve for these presentations.  You are, of course, encouraged to consult other bibliographical holdings for further information.

(SPRG09) Flora Gonzalez 

4 Credits
A course exploring the problem of aesthetic judgment and the relation between aesthetics, ethics and politics. Through a series of readings across periods (from the 18th century to today) and across disciplines (from philosophy, to film, to fiction, to poetry , to art) the course will examine what it means to be a member of an aesthetic community, as well as how communities shape aesthetic values and impact political repsonsiblities. In other words, the course will look at how "taste" constructs us as we construct it.

(FALL08) Maria Koundoura 

4 Credits
Study of the novel from a theoretical and philosophical perspective. Course might look at a particular aspect of the art of the nobel, a subgenre (romance, gothic, etc.), historical period (ancient, Modernist, etc.), national tradition, or at movements like existentialism, postmodernism, or changes in contemporary language philosophy. Course examines primary works of literature together with theoretical texts on narrative art.

(SPRG09) Yu-jin Chang 

4 Credits
A course on the history and theory of the novel that focuses on one or more aspects of its development from the classical Greek Romance through eighteenth-century realism, its evolution in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The focus may include prose fiction in other non-Western cultures (Japan, China), the Renaissance (Boccaccio), the importance of Cervantes, the rise of manifest fiction in the Enlightenment, or the formalist turn of Modernism. Readings may include theoretical work from Adorno, Kant, Bernstein, Luhmann, Derrida and others, and representative readings in fiction from different periods.

(FALL08) William Donoghue 

4 Credits
Analytical and critical study of a variety of poets and/or schools of poetry, modern and contemporary, that explores their approaches to craft, form, and theme, as well as their aesthetic, cultural, and historical assumptions for and about the art

(FALL08) Christine Casson 

4 Credits
Analytical and critical study of a variety of short stories, mostly modern and contemporary, that explores their approaches to form, theme, and technique

(FALL08) DeWitt Henry 

4 Credits
A literature course that focuses on the nonfiction narrative. We will examine memoir, the personal essay, biography, travel writing, nature writing, and other nonfiction writing from various periods, with particular attention paid to issues of craft and structure, as well as historical and cultural contexts.

(FALL08) Richard Hoffman 

4 Credits
A magazine publishing course designed to give students experience in developing magazine feature stories. Students will brainstorm, report, and write their own magazine-style stories, with emphasis on the shaping and editing stage. They will also read and discuss published work by professionals. Class will be conducted as a writing workshop in a style that mimics a magazine atmosphere. Nonfiction students may take this course once as a substitute for WR613. 

(FALL08) William Beuttler 

4.00 Credits
A course designed to give students an understanding of the ethical decisions editors and writers face in magazine publishing today. The course will draw on current issues in magazine publishing and will focus on these as well as historical readings and class discussions as a means of trying to understand the ethics behind the decisions and actions that take place in magazine publishing.

(FALL08) Jeffrey Seglin 

4.00 Credits
A course designed to give students an understanding of the magazine editing process; it will cover topics ranging from focus, direction, topicality, structure, sense of audience, and voice. Practical application of editing skills as well as historic examples of editors and their magazines will be explored. (Prerequisite: Completion of WP 680 or Permission of Instructor.)

(SPRG09) William Beuttler 

4.00 Credits
A course designed to give students an understanding of the magazine writing and editing process. The course will cover topics ranging from idea generation and story selection to the mechanics of editing and how the editorial process works. (Prerequisite: Completion of WP 680 or Permission of Instructor.)

(FALL08) William Beuttler 

4.00 Credits
A course designed to give students an understanding of the magazine field from the perspective of writers and editors. Editorial and business operations of magazines will be explored; the editorial mix and magazine geography will also be examined.

(FALL08) Leslie Brokaw  Deblina Chakraborty  Gian Lombardo  (SPRG09) Leslie Brokaw  Gian Lombardo 

4.00 Credits
This course covers magazine design fundamentals: design, typography, image research and assignment, and prepress and manufacturing. Each student produces a sample magazine through a workshop process of presentations and revisions. This course is not a computer lab course and assumes necessary computer skills.

(FALL08) Lisa Diercks 

4.00 Credits
An introduction to the book publishing industry, including a detailed examination of the editorial, marketing, and design and production stages of the book publishing process. The course also looks at important developments and issues within the field, such as online publishing, and at various jobs in book publishing.

(FALL08) David Emblidge  Gian Lombardo  (SPRG09) Gian Lombardo  Daniel Weaver 

4.00 Credits
This course will review alternative, independent and small imprint book publishers in the United States, and their role in publishing, society and culture today. We will examine these independent publishers, their markets and targeted audiences and discuss how they compete with large, corporate publishing houses. The course will review alternate presses, political books on the right and left, eBooks, digital books and the social & business responsibilities of the press.

(FALL08) James McCormack 

4.00 Credits
The bookseller plays a key role in publishing, through the mechanics of distribution and as an arbiter of taste. This course examines how bookselling has evolved in American literary and publishing history. Students examine how today's booksellers carry out their functions, with or without success. The course also peers into the future, constructing a vision of what bookselling may become in the digital age. Using readings, bookstore observations, shadowing of booksellers on the job, videos about struggling and thriving independent bookstores and, and Internet bookstore web site analysis, students develop a perspective on the past, present and future of bookselling. Suitable for people in the editorial, marketing or sales areas of book publishing.

(SPRG09) David Emblidge 

4.00 Credits
This course considers book editing skills, tasks, and responsibilities from initial review and acquisition of a book manuscript through project development; the course emphasizes trade book editing, but also considers editorial work at scholarly and professional presses. (Prerequisite: WP 683 or Permission of Instructor.)

(FALL08) Fred Francis  (SPRG09) David Emblidge 

4.00 Credits
This course covers book and book jacket design fundamentals: design, typography, image research and assignment, and prepress and manufacturing. The class will edit, design, and produce a book (content to be decided in class). This is not a computer lab course and assumes students have necessary computer skills. 

(SPRG09) Lisa Diercks 

4 Credits
A magazine publishing course designed to give students an understanding of the process of researching, writing, and revising magazine columns with an understanding of the importance of audience. This course can count for one workshop credit for nonfiction students.

(FALL08) Jeffrey Seglin  (SPRG09) Jeffrey Seglin 

4.00 Credits
A practical course that covers the process of editing and preparing manuscripts for publication. Together with hands-on assignments, the course considers the relation of editor to author, the nature of copyediting in various publishing environments, and other topics.

(FALL08) Karen English  Daniel Weaver  (SPRG09) Karen English 

4 Credits
A book publishing course designed to familiarize students with trade book promotion to the media. The course starts with an overview of book publicity and then covers the publicity process, as well as the type of freelance help available, crafting the press material, the aughor-publicist dynamic, how to secure and promote bookstore events, the art of the interview, and the art of the pitch. Prerequisite PB683

(SPRG09) Lissa Warren 

0.00 Credits
Internships involve work in writing and publishing. Internships in other areas should be undertaken through the appropriate department. Students are expected to attend class meetings during the internship semester and may not register for another course whose meeting time coincides with that of the internship course. A 4-credit internship requires 16 hours a week over a 12-week period and an 8-credit internship requires 32 hours a week over a 12-week period. No more than eight credits of internship and no more than 12 credits of any combination of internship, directed project, and directed study may be applied to the total graduation requirements. Please consult the Academic Calendar for registration deadlines.

(FALL08) Gian Lombardo  (SPRG09) Gian Lombardo 

4.00 Credits
In this course students master the page layout and image creation software used in the publishing industry. Students will also learn related computer-based skills, such as type and image sourcing; image acquisition, including scanning; and copyright issues. Although some design issues will be addressed, the primary focus is on software skills. This course assumes the student has basic Macintosh skills.

(FALL08) Melissa Gruntkosky  (SPRG09) Melissa Gruntkosky 

4.00 Credits
An introduction to electronic and new media publishing formats, including but not limited to the Web, online publishing, CD-ROM, and DVD. This course assumes student has basic computer skills.

(FALL08) John Rodzvilla  (SPRG09) John Rodzvilla 

4 Credits
This course will provide students with a base knowledge of the business aspects of publishing in the three publishing sectors: book, magazine and the Internet. The course will help students to develop a basic understanding of the financial management and economic levers of publishing and will analyze the importance, contributions and methods of advertising, marketing, distribution, circulation, operations and customer service to each publishing segment. At the conclusion of the course, students should have a base knowledge of the business of publishing, the departments that drive the business of publishing, the ability to create and use the basic financial documents, profit & loss statements and budgets for a publishing enterprise and how their proper usage and analysis can drive decision making and allow publishers to be successful in the competitive market of today.

(FALL08) James McCormack  (SPRG09) James McCormack 

4 Credits
This course is designed as an extension of Emerson's Book Publishing Overview course for students who want to further explore the sales and marketing sides of the business.  It starts with where marketing and sales fit into the life of a book, the differences between the two areas (since they are so often lumped into the linguistic catch-all "salesandmarketing"), and the distinct effect that each, done well or badly, has on a book's success.  It then tracks the marketing and sales process through a book's publication with specific assignments at each stage based on real-world publishing tasks?from sales forecasting to planning (and budgeting for) marketing campaigns, writing catalog copy and title information sheets, conceiving and writing promotional materials, including advertisements, sales conference preparation and planning, sales calls and the retailers' buying processes.  The work of the marketing and sales teams don't end when a book is published, and one of the last segments of the class will focus on what goes on after the ship and publication dates have passed.  And finally: career planning?how to choose between marketing and sales and the different pathways to get where you want to go in the publishing business.

(FALL08) Beth Ineson 

4 Credits
This seminar will provide an introduction to the history, practices, current challenges and future of independent publishing in America. We will examine the links between books, publishing and social change. We will study literary, political (progressive and conservative), African American, Latino and feminist presses. Special attention will be paid to the impact of technology and environmental concerns on publishing practices. Students will profile an independent publisher, submit a plan for starting their own or develop a plan for publishing a title with social impact. 

(SPRG09) Thomas Hallock 

4 Credits
An introduction to the complexities of subsidiary rights and permissions in trade book publishing. The class is designed to introduce key concepts on copyright, author agreements, licensing subsidiary rights, granting permissions, and how licensing helps both the author and the publisher. Student will also discuss contemporary issues surrounding permissions, licensing and copyright.

(SPRG09) John Rodzvilla 

4.00 Credits
Survey and analysis of current composition theories and the study of teaching methods and assignment and syllabus preparation. Students report regularly in class on their responses to the texts they read. They also observe and participate in ongoing freshman writing classes. At the end of the semester they produce a detailed critical appraisal of what they have read and discussed, along with a full prospectus describing the course they may go on to teach.

(FALL08) John Trimbur  (SPRG09) John Trimbur 

4.00 Credits
In-class discussion of original poems with the aim of helping students learn strategies for generating and revising work. The workshop asks you to consider your work in light of the essential issues of the poet's craft, and to articulate your individual sensibilities as poets.

(FALL08) Anne Cameron Thomas  Christine Casson  John Skoyles  (SPRG09) Jonathan Aaron 

4.00 Credits
This workshop will use student manuscripts as its main texts, supplemented by published stories, to illustrate the fundamental aspects of fiction writing, mainly in the short story form. The course explores the complexities of narration, characterization, scene, dialogue, style, tone, plot, etc. The emphasis will be on the generation of fictional works and on their revision.

(FALL08) DeWitt Henry  (SPRG09) Michael Heppner 

4.00 Credits
Explores the complexities of dialogue, scene, narrative, and style.

(FALL08) Bernard Brooks  Maria Flook  Pamela Painter  (SPRG09) Maria Flook  Pamela Painter  Ladette Randolph 

4 Credits
This workshop explores how poems are shaped by attention to metrical lineation and rhythm, stanza structure, and the forms of poetry, such as the sonnet, sestina, villanelle, renga, ballade, ghazal, etc. Students are expected to write original poems in forms, as well as to develop their practical knowledge of prosody.

(SPRG09) Daniel Tobin 

4.00 Credits
Stresses the writing of many forms of nonfiction, such as informal essays, autobiography, profiles, travel writing, or literary journalism, coupled with in-class reading for criticism and suggestions.

(FALL08) Joseph Hurka  Douglas Whynott  (SPRG09) Richard Hoffman  Megan Marshall 

4.00 Credits
A detailed exploration of the playwright's craft for the medium of the stage. Each student undertakes to write a major dramatic work and submits a draft for critique and discussion.

(FALL08) William Orem 

4.00 Credits
For students with screenplays-in-progress and for writers wishing to start new scripts.

(SPRG09) Christopher Keane 

4.00 Credits
A workshop in structuring and writing the opening chapters of a first novel. The course explores story premise, stylistic approaches, point-of-view system, and other structural parameters, as well as revision.

(FALL08) Frederick Reiken  (SPRG09) Lise Haines 

4.00 Credits
A workshop for students with novels-in-progress and for writers wishing to start new novels. This course examines the development, organization, and revision of a novel beyond its initial stages.

(FALL08) Kimberly McLarin  (SPRG09) Kimberly McLarin 

4.00 Credits
A writing workshop focusing on the extended narrative, with discussions of organizing the research, developing an outline and devising a structure, carrying out the plan, and writing the book proposal. Students submit their own work and read from a list of nonfiction books of various approaches.

(FALL08) Megan Marshall  (SPRG09) Douglas Whynott