Draper Interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Humanities and Social Thought
G65.1135:
The Human Fact II
Provisional Syllabus: Readings Subject to Change
Spring 2010
Prof. Jan Clausen
This course in the craft of writing involves textual analysis and criticism, and is an
ongoing fiction workshop for graduate students in the humanities.
Lionel Trilling wrote that the true job of the fiction writer is “to reveal the human fact in
its veil of circumstances.” The “human fact” that Trilling refers to is more than character,
more than verbal portraiture or any specific figurative representation of an individual—
more, even, than a reaffirmation that there is no such thing as an ordinary life. He was
writing about the revelation, in fiction, of the unspoken yet ever-present sensation of life.
Literary narrative in all of its forms may be gathered under the umbrella of this definition.
The course is an exploration of the writer’s craft with an emphasis on the above notion. A
course packet of stories and essays includes work by the authors mentioned in the list of
class meetings, below. Most of these are 20th century fiction writers; we will also read a
long narrative poem, Anne Carson’s The Autobiography of Red. We will read as writers,
with an eye toward analyzing the components of craft as they contribute to theme,
significance, aesthetic effect, and emotional impact. One major comparative focus of our
reading discussion will be the management of point of view as it relates to elements such
as plot, characterization, the handling of time, and the use of detail to create a fictional
world. We will also be looking at how the writer solicits our suspension of disbelief,
whether within the densely referenced mirror-world of socially “realistic” fiction or the
no-holds-barred atmosphere of the surrealist or fabulist narrative. Meanwhile, students
will write and revise their own stories, presenting their drafts in workshop format on a
rotating basis.
Class time will include discussions of the texts, which will require close reading of each
assigned work; students may be asked to write short critical analyses of selected readings
to further the discussion. Students’ creative writing (fiction, with an option to include
some poetry) will be analyzed in workshop format, drawing on and extending the insights
into craft that are provoked by assigned readings. In addition to short creative and critical
assignments, students will be asked to draft a minimum of two short stories (or one
substantial story plus four to five poems). Students will be asked to revise and complete a
portion of the drafted work as a final assignment.
Week 1: Introduction and writing assignment
Week 2: Vladimir Nabokov; workshop.
Week 3: Ha Jin; workshop.
Week 4: Julio Cortázar (story plus essay); workshop.
Week 5: Anne Carson; workshop.
Week 6: Anne Carson; workshop.
Week 7: Anne Carson; workshop
Week 8: Ama Ata Aidoo and Chinua Achebe (essay); workshop.
Week 9: Bernard Malamud; workshop.
Week 10: John Edgar Wideman; workshop.
Week 11: Edmund White; workshop.
Week 12: Jamaica Kincaid; workshop
Week 13: Raymond Carver; workshop.
Week 14: Franz Kafka; workshop.
Students will have an opportunity to present their creative writing in workshop format at
least twice during the semester. Copies must be distributed to the class in advance of the
workshop date. The teacher will provide written feedback on workshop material and
there will also be several due dates for completed work (at mid-semester and semester’s
end). The expectation is for a minimum of 25 pages of completed material (prose)
comprising two or more stories, with at least one of them substantially revised following
workshop presentation. By arrangement, a portion of the final work may be poetry, prose
poetry, or short-short fiction.
THE HUMAN FACT II
Packet Contents
Note: Students will also be asked to purchase The Autobiography of Red. a novel in
verse by Anne Carson (paperback).
Achebe, Chinua. “The Writer and His Community.”
Aidoo, Ama Ata. “The Message.”
Carver, Raymond. “Cathedral.”
Cortázar, Julio. “On the Short Story and Its Environs.”
Cortázar, Julio. “We Love Glenda So Much.”
Jin, Ha. “In Broad Daylight.”
Kafka, Franz. “A Hunger Artist.”
Kincaid, Jamaica. “My Mother.”
Kincaid, Jamaica. “Wingless.”
Malamud, Bernard. “Idiots First.”
Nabokov, Vladimir. “Signs and Symbols.”
White, Edmund. Chapter One from A Boy’s Own Story.
Wideman, John Edgar. “Ascent by Balloon from the Yard of Walnut Street Jail.”
Wideman, John Edgar. “Little Brother.”
Williams, William Carlos. “The Use of Force.”