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Have you ever felt bored with academic writing? Do you feel constrained by the ‘objective’ and ‘neutral’ tone expected of your coursework? That your ideas don’t fit into the typical model for an academic essay (introduction-argument-conclusion)?

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In this module, we will encounter and take inspiration from a range of critics who have challenged the conventions of academic writing. Authors to be discussed may include Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Franz Fanon, Hélène Cixous, Jacques Derrida, Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, Kate Briggs, Mieke Bal, Maggie Nelson, Anahid Nersessian. These writers are very different from one another, but they have all chosen to experiment with the form of their writing: how the argument is written is integral to what it says. This kind of link between form and content will be central to our work in this module: it is comparative because we will explore texts written in different languages, but more importantly the module will encourage you to compare literary criticism to other genres and modes of writing.

In the course of ten weeks, we will be conducting our own writing experiments that pay attention to our writerly voice, the addressee of our work, the locations of our writing, and the ethics and aesthetics of critical interpretation. Instead of essays, we will be producing journals, prose-poems, responses to visual images and musical prompts; we will create collages and dramatic monologues, assemble linguistic fragments in translations and engage in site-specific writing challenges.