An immersion into the reading and writing of letters, and an examination of correspondence as an environment through which we cultivate relationship with ourselves, what and how we think, and the world. We will read and write epistolary works in a variety of forms: letters, essays, stories, poems, collaborations, ekphrasis, open letters. We will explore the use of correspondence in strengthening attention and observation, in developing ideas and desires, in creating and archiving memory, and as a form of research. Students will also develop and maintain their own correspondence practices.

In this class, you will learn the fundamentals of audio reporting and production. We will teach you how to gather and edit exceptional audio, interviewing techniques, how to write for broadcast and how to structure and produce compelling news and feature stories. Through a series of ever more challenging assignments –both individual and group; in class and out --you will gather the expertise to produce an NPR style piece of audio journalism. Along the way, you will learn how to pitch a story and come to understand the ethics of journalism. This will be a hands on workshop with a heavy workload of reporting assignments that we will critique together. A fair amount of class time will be dedicated to individual edit sessions of stories you are producing. The final project will be a sound rich 5 to 7 minute piece worthy of broadcast.

The Moving Line provides students with an in-depth exploration of creative practice. Drawing on two disciplines, creative writing and calligraphy, and incorporating practices designed to enhance mindfulness, Professors Jane Hilberry and Barbara Bash lead students in exercises that connect them with their own creative resources and energies.

In this course we will develop/cultivate a relationship with research as a creative process—as an art—that is essential to creative writing, narrative problem solving, knowledge making, and the revelation of truth. We will explore, in reading and through our own writing projects, a range of research methodologies that move beyond more conventional modes into experimental, sensorial, somatic, affective and improvisational realms, including reenactment, ritual, pilgrimage, performance, dreams, among other forms of deep listening and imaginative/intuitive practices. We will consult creative research by writers/artists such as Diana Khoi Nguyen, Rea Tajiri, Don Mee Choi, Barbara Browning, Tina Campt, Alice Walker, and Bhanu Kapil, who writes, in her book Humanimal, “I put my hand on her grave and waited, until I could feel the rhythm, faintly, of breathing.”