Monstrous Possibility: Changing Forms in Literature and Politics

How do we imagine new possibilities for being in the world — new ways of thinking and feeling, new ways of organizing social and political life, new ways of expressing ourselves? Our title, "Monstrous Possibility", is a reference to a story by Italo Calvino in which a new and unfamiliar creature is considered a monster, something that can't be considered, shouldn't be looked at... until it changes everything. Sometimes it takes the monstrous, the play of the avant-garde, the disruptions of action, the shock of the incomprehensible to open our minds. We build monsters and create possibilities in part by drawing from the past, build our own unique set of influences and sources to launch new projects and equip ourselves with the intellectual and creative capacity to take meaningful action in the present.

In this program, we will examine literary and political threads of rebellion, of radical rethinking and disruption, especially those that use formal experimentation and novel collaborations between art and politics — works which allow us to rethink the way things are and trace a broad, weird, and powerful legacy of movements, manifestos, and schools of political and aesthetic thought that have changed the world.

Much of our work will involve building a literacy that connects texts across time and place and grounds creative rebellions in their social and political milieu. For instance, we'll ground one of our units of study in the Dadaist, Surrealist and Situationist reactions to the deadening political and aesthetic frameworks inherited from the 19th century and follow their strategies into the punk aesthetic of the 70s and 80s and the indigenous Zapatista rebellion in Mexico in 1994. The writers Kafka and Beckett will provide the anchor of another unit connecting literary disruptions of narrative and form with our sensibility for the "Kafkaesque" and "Beckettian" in political and social life. We will also explore how diverse communities, from feminist to indigenous artists and advocates and more, remake aesthetic forms to intervene in ongoing struggles and renew political expression and possibility.

Through the fall and winter in each multi-week unit of study, you will work deeply and collaboratively with several major and ancillary texts, finishing the unit with an essay or assignment that synthesizes your thinking. Lectures will emphasize contextualization of our readings, political and social developments, thematic connections, and close reading skills. Workshops will support students in developing research skills and practicing critical and creative writing. Seminars will be a forum for rich discussions of texts and preparation for major essay work.

In the winter, students will have the chance to pursue major individual or shared projects to investigate new areas of inquiry and undertake creative work that can build upon program themes to intervene and inspire new cultural and political possibilities in our contemporary moment. As the American poet William Carlos Williams asks us: "What would happen in a world...lit by the imagination?"

Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:

8 - Literary Arts and Studies: Modern and Contemporary

8 - Cultural Theory & Aesthetics

8 - Writing: Inquiry, Research, and Essay

4 - Creative Writing

4 - Political Philosophy