ENG U79020
Image/Text/Poem: Composing Memoir in the Digital Age
In The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick writes, “A memoir is a work of sustained narrative prose controlled by an idea of the self under obligation to lift from the raw materials of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver wisdom. Truth in a memoir is achieved not through a recital of actual events; it is achieved when the reader comes to believe that the writer is working hard to engage with the experience at hand. What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened. For that the power of a writing imagination is required.” (91)
In this seminar, we will explore the writing imagination by composing several pieces of personal writing (two short pieces based on models that can easily be adapted for use in undergraduate college classrooms and one longer piece of sustained narrative prose that explores issues connected to composing the self as each writer comes to define and understand these issues). Pieces will begin with language on the page but will ultimately be transformed into new media projects, comprised of both words and images. Digital and written drafts of work-in-progress will be shared weekly and responses to assigned readings will be posted to a class blog as will links to the digital projects. Readings will consist of short reflective pieces written by well-known compositionists including Rebecca Faery and Mary Pinard. Two full-length memoirs will also be examined to discover how or whether the authors delivered on the promise outlined above by Gornick. In other words, while reading David Borkowski’s A Shot Story (soon to be published by Fordham University Press) and my own memoir On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I was Taught to Hate, we will ask how and whether these texts transform lived experiences into language and images and a narrative voice that readers find believable. Familiarity with digital tools such as I-Movie or apps for making videos on mobile devices will be helpful but is not essential. What is essential is goodwill, a willingness to respond honestly to others, and a desire to engage in composing experiments where the shape and form of narratives change as they move from the page to the screen.