ENGL 3022 Reading, Making, Doing

Taking Alice Walkers essay " In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens" as a central theoretical text, students will explore how working with our hands in gardening, cooking, and fabric arts affects the way we read and interpret literary texts. In this one credit course, we will read a few key pieces of writing, mostly by black women writers, that think about, and ask us to think about 1) what other modes of knowing are available to us through crafting and domestic arts? And 2) what challenges do these other modes of knowing present traditional academic modes of inquiry (i.e. " book learning")? Each class session we will discuss a short piece of black literature while also participating. There are no papers or exams for this course. The class will culminate with a brief reflective presentation during which each student will share what theyve learned about how they learn and how they read with the rest of the class.