The Craft of Writing

In this course we will study stories of selves and ask what it means to tell such stories. Rather than seeing self-telling as an obvious, straightforward, or simple feature of the human, we will question its workings carefully, using philosophical accounts of the self’s emergence and narration: How does one tell the self, and what does it mean to narrate the “I”? How does the “I” emerge, and how do ideological forces such as gender, race, class, and the body affect its telling? Can there be a true “I”? Is it a necessary fiction? What stories should it tell, and are they to be considered truths? Texts will include short works by authors such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Denise Riley, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, David Foster Wallace, Adriana Cavarero, Louis Althusser, and more (subject to change).