Course Credits (3)
Students will write creative short fiction based on ethnographic research conducted through field work around the New Brunswick area, learning to define and describe what it means to be and belong, create and construct, and imagine and desire a place. Why place? Because places are sometimes so familiar that they are difficult to see and easy to ignore. Yet in life, real or imagined, a place is what we miss, where we see ourselves going, and how we feel, looking ahead or back at our lives. Through a series of projects involving walking, close observations, interviewing, and storytelling, students will learn the skills to write the ‘story’ of their place. Readings will draw from a range of ethnographies and creative writing such as: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Alive in the Writing by Kirin Narayan, essays from anthropologist Ruth Behar, and short stories from Jhumpa Lahiri, Tim O’Brien, Ha Jin, Lorrie Moore, and Ernest Hemingway. The course is co-taught by instructors with backgrounds in creative writing and ethnography.
About Professors
- Brie Ashley is an Associate Professor in The English Department’s Writing Program with a M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the University of Michigan.
- Puja Sahney is an Assistant Teaching Professor in The English Department’s Writing Program with a Ph.D. in Folklore from Indiana University, Bloomington.