WRIT52800 - Responding to the Chicago Renaissance

Course Description

The “Chicago Renaissance” flourished from 1910-45. We will investigate poems, essays, and paintings by some of the writers and artists who contributed to it and write our own creative responses to them. How might we respond to the city’s past? This course blurs the boundaries between “creative” and “critical” approaches to the city’s history. We will read historical texts in different genres and discuss each other’s responses in a workshop setting. During most classes, the first half will be spent discussing the week’s reading, and the second half workshopping student responses to the readings. Students are invited to work on poems, essays, or stories that resonate with the historical texts we read. Our “tour” through the city stops at four locations in time and space: the Loop offices of The Little Review in 1914, the Hull House settlement in 1916, the gallery walls of the South Side Community Art Center, and the offices of The Chicago Defender, both in the early 1940s, during the city’s ”second Renaissance.”

Notes

Online registration deadline: Thursday, June 16 at 5 pm CT

Remote courses require you to login to Canvas to access the Zoom Classroom. You will receive an invitation to join Canvas about a week before your course begins. Please visit the Liberal Arts Student Resources page to find step by step instructions for Canvas and Zoom: Online Learning Resources