English 118 - Mixing Memory and Desire:

Language and the Construction of Experience

TTh 9:00-10:20

TTh 10:30-11:50

Melissa Bagg

How does language construct what it attempts to describe?  What is the connection between words and worlds?  Readings will focus on the delights and dangers of language's transfigurative power, with a particular emphasis on the way words define social, cultural and individual identities.  Assignments include three short analytical essays, an oral report, and a research paper on a memoirist of your choice.

This is a writing course designed specifically for international students whose mother tongue is not English.  Such students more directly and obviously experience language as a tool that they shape for their purposes, rather than as a transparent medium.  This special awareness will work to their advantage in this course.