Fiction As Witness

Fiction as Witness: Trauma, Transformation, and
Black Women's Writing

In this course, we will explore the writerly idea
that writing can be a healing practice for coping
with both lived experience and the ambient
violence of the world around us. We will also
interrogate the readerly expectation and literary
convention that fictional crises resolve,
transforming character(s) in the process. And
we'll inquire further: What happens when the
writer not only relates trauma, but (re)enacts
it? Are we dependent upon each other for
remembering and release of traumatic experience?
What are some of the forms and structures for
this kind of writing? What are the limits of
witness? How do we maintain focus on the fact
that we are engaged not in sociology or
anthropology, but in art? To address these
concerns, among others, we will focus our close
reading, writing and discussion on a variety of
fictional texts: poems, plays, short stories and
a novel or two, along with excerpts from critics
and theorists, and examples from dance, film, and
visual art, and more. Students will produce
original critical-creative works based on the
their presentations of and engagement with course
materials, and contribute to the ongoing
conversation about where art and life intersect,
and the transformative potential at the crossroad.