Q3199: Experimental Writing
University of Sussex
School of English
Spring 2016
Dr. Samuel Solomon (samuel.solomon@sussex.ac.uk)
Meeting times/venue:
Group 1:
Monday 2-3pm / Arts A A155(workshop)
Thursday 2-4pm / Arundel 220 (seminar)
Group 2:
Monday 3-4pm / Arts A A155 (workshop)
Friday 2-4pm / Arundel 220 (seminar)
My Office/hours: Arts B270 / Times TBD
MODULE DESCRIPTION
This module considers why and how writers produce new forms. It explores the historical and
current uses of a variety of names for writing that defies generic expectations ('innovative,' 'avantgarde,' 'experimental,' 'difficult,' and 'cross-genre,' to name a few). The module will require that
students read a wide range of exemplary texts (likely but not necessarily chosen from the modern
and contemporary periods) that eschew easy generic categorisation. Critical inquiry will focus on
the effects of formal techniques within specific literary historical and social contexts. Students will
also develop their own writing, and up to 50% of class time may be devoted to workshopping
student work. As writers, students may be asked to identify the tensions or contradictions that
animate their writing and to work up, in structured, experimental, or procedural fashion, a set of
formal mechanisms for reframing these tensions. The module will help students to bring creative
writing and critical practice together in order best to navigate their aims and objectives for writing.
Final assessment will involve a critical/creative dissertation of 6,000 words.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
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Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red, 1998
Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness, 1969
Craig Santos Perez, From unincorporated territory: [guma], 2014
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric, 2014
Fran Ross, Oreo, 1974
Juliana Spahr, The Transformation , 2007
*please acquire your own copies of these texts – any edition acceptable unless
otherwise noted*
*all other texts will be provided on Study Direct or else through the library*
ASSESSMENTS:
100% - 6000 word dissertation (creative/critical) to be submitted by the date published on
Sussex Direct. More information about the dissertation will be provided by Week 4 of the
term.
WORKSHOPS:
Each of you will have your work formally discussed by the whole group at least twice
during the course of the term. These discussions were mostly take place during workshop
sessions, but seminar sessions will also include some workshop time. On the week that
you are scheduled to present your work, you are REQUIRED to pre-circulate your work
electronically via Study Direct to your peers and to me (unless it is performance-based or
otherwise impossible to pre-circulate). You are required to send out this work at least 48
hours prior to the class session in which we will discuss it. Attendance at workshop is
required for everyone, whether or not you are presenting on a given week. You are all
responsible for reading your peers’ work in advance and for coming to class prepared to
discuss it. The success of a workshop depends on the energy and attention that you bring
to it – generally, you will get what you give.
ADDITIONAL MODULE POLICIES
Attendance and punctuality at all meetings are essential for success on this module.
Students are required to attend all seminars having read all of the set texts. Do not come
to class having failed to engage with the reading. Reading and writing are not extra or
optional tasks. They are, rather, the most basic requirements for participating in the class,
and the fact of having done them is not cause for accolades.
Everyone is encouraged to read widely on their own, in whatever historical, theoretical,
and literary works they find most valuable, and to share these materials in our study
direct forums.
Write as much and as frequently as you can manage. I recommend that you keep a single
notebook and pen and keep them on your person as much as you can (on the train, in the
park, at the café/pub/cinema/etc.).
My policy with emails is as follows: if I can’t answer a question in one sentence, I urge
you to ask me in person during office hours. If you absolutely can’t make it to my office
hours, I will attempt to arrange alternate meeting times. I also reserve my right not to
respond to emails sent outside of work hours (i.e., at nights and on weekends).
SCHEDULE OF READINGS
(NB. These are to be read before seminar sessions. Assignments for workshops will be set
on a week by week basis)
WEEK 1: Some terms (read the following BEFORE OUR FIRST MEETING)
 Christopher Higgs, et al., “What is Experimental Literature?”:
http://htmlgiant.com/random/what-is-experimental-literature-recap-fivequestions-vol-1/
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Claude Bernard, “Observation and Experiment” from An introduction to the study
of experimental medicine
(https://archive.org/stream/b21270557#page/26/mode/2up)
Thomas Kuhn, “The Route to Normal Science”, from The structure of scientific
revolutions
Michael D. Gordin, “Introduction: Bad Ideas”, from The pseudoscience wars
WEEK 2: Procedures – Work, text, and activity
 Jacques Roubaud, Introduction to the Oulipo Compendium
 Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young, '"& and" and foulipo'
 Karen Brodine, Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking
 CA Conrad, A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon (selections)
WEEK 3: Forms and Worlds
 Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness
 Fredric Jameson, “World Reduction in LeGuin: The Emergence of Utopian
Narrative” http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/7/jameson7art.htm
 Martin Bickman, “LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness: Form and Content”:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4239066?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&si
d=21104780328961
WEEK 4: Recycling and reworking
 Fran Ross, Oreo
 Fran Ross, “Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor”
 Harryette Mullen, “Apple Pie with Oreo Crust”:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3250639?sid=21105536237323&uid=2&ui
d=3739560&uid=3739256&uid=4
WEEK 5: Archive, Document, Colony
 Craig Santos Perez, From unincorporated territory: [guma]
 Walter Benjamin, “The Author as Producer”:
http://newleftreview.org/I/62/walter-benjamin-the-author-as-producer
 Dorothy Wang, “Introduction” to Thinking Its Presence:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk.ezproxy.sussex.ac.uk/library/reserve/2015/Q3199_60498
.pdf
 Additional secondary readings TBC
WEEK 6: Whose “I”, What “Subject”
 Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric
 Patricia J. Williams, On Being the Object of Property:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3174659?sid=21105536237323&uid=2&ui
d=4&uid=3739560&uid=3739256
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Additional secondary readings TBC
WEEK 7: NO SEMINAR MEETING (Workshop meetings as usual)
 Small group office hour meetings w/ SS to discuss dissertation projects
WEEK 8: Reworking perception
 Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
 Stuart Murray, “The Autobiographical Self: Phenomenology and the Limits of
Narrative Self-Possession in Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red”:
https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/esc_english_st
udies_in_canada/v031/31.4murray.html
WEEK 9: “They” Write
 Juliana Spahr, The Transformation
 Sianne Ngai, “Network Aesthetics: Juliana Spahr’s The Transformation and
Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social”
 Ann Vickery, “Kind of, In Kind”: http://www.axonjournal.com.au/issue-7/kindkind
WEEK 10: Materials TBC
 Extended attention to workshopping
WEEK 11: No New Materials
 Consolidation and Dissertation Planning
WEEK 12: NO SEMINAR OR WORKSHOP MEETINGS
 Tutorial meetings and small group workshops