Will Count Towards SAS - English Major and Minor
Application required click here to apply.
In this course, we will focus our attention on one novel by Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man.
Why one book? We learn how to read critically not by reading, but by re-reading. And yet, you could scan university syllabi the world over and you would find few, if any, courses where students are given the time necessary to reread a text that has already been covered. In this seminar, we will be learning about how we read by moving slowly through a text that is rich, challenging, and unsettling.
Why this book? We are living at a moment when the country’s roots in slavery and racism have become central to the country’s politics. Ellison’s novel, published in 1952, is narrated by a nameless black man, expelled from college in the South, who moves to New York City where he tries to build a new life for himself. Philosophical, meditative, incisive: Ellison invites his readers to see Black America as complex, layered, and conflicted.
What will you do besides read? This is a course in essayistic thinking. As such, it is a course designed to cultivate curiosity and original, research-based writing. There will be daily, graded, in-class responses to the day’s reading; there will be brief formal submissions along the way, as we make our way through Ellison’s novel. And there will be a final, research-based paper that explores a question of the student’s choosing.
Who should take this course? Anyone who wants to be a better reader. Anyone who wants to learn how to write creatively about the real world. Anyone who wants to acquire the habits of the creative mind. STEM students, students in the social sciences, and students in the humanities all will find much of interest in Ellison’s work.
Please note: admission to this course is by permission only. Interested students should fill out the application form, which may be found here. Applications will be read in the order received. Admitted students will receive a special permission number.
About Professor Miller