Our inquiry explores the power of storytelling in literature and film to take fresh looks at experience. It is designed for students who are prepared to do a serious writing or media-making project in documentary, fictional or hybrid modes. You will study a series of stellar written and audiovisual texts, examine the methods these artists use to craft compelling narratives, and mine them for inspiration and guidance as you pursue your own original work. The aim is to discover a poetics and a continuum of techniques to feed your creative practices, now and in the future. For advanced students, this program is an ideal context for advanced projects; for intermediate students, a challenging opportunity to develop their craft.

Your project can be collaborative or individual; faculty will provide sustained guidance at each stage of its development, and students will support and critique one another’s work. Texts will span documentary and fiction genres, with readings by authors such as Joan Didion, Ralph Ellison, Joseph Mitchell, Octavia Butler, Grace Paley, Junot Diaz, W.G. Sebald and D.F. Wallace, films by directors such as John Akomfrah, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Godard, Errol Morris, Yasujiro Ozu, Jay Rosenblatt and Wim Wenders, and theory from critics such as Walter Benjamin and David Bordwell.   The first weeks of the quarter will include instruction in fieldwork and self-reflection: ways of listening, observing, recalling, and recording to make truthful stories. Artists will come to talk with us about their work and creative process. The program will culminate in presentations of students’ compact, polished, finished pieces of writing or film/video/web-based media.