As part of her tenure in the summer term of 2024, Picador Professor Rita Bullwinkel will teach two classes at American Studies Leipzig.
Generative Fiction Seminar
Wednesdays, 1-5 pm, NSG 224
Writing is a unique medium in that it is both made and, generally, consumed in isolation, and therefore oral and written responses that engage with a work are particularly rare and valuable to the writer. Through the space of the writer's workshop an author can escape the isolation in which they made their work, understand their work from a consciousness other than their own, and procure insight into how to further their creative project into its fullest, most complex and potent, form. In this course students will read, discuss, and provide oral feedback in response to the work of their peers. Students will also read the work of acclaimed contemporary authors alongside the work of their peers in order to identify how their own work, and the work of their peers, is situated within the contemporary literary landscape.
The first session of this class will take place in the week of June 3, 2024. Please note that all classes will be double sessions (1 - 5 pm).
You can enroll in this course by registering for the 5-LP BA professional skills module "Creative Writing: Envisioning America" (04-001-1020).
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Building Radical Worlds
Wednesdays, 9am-1pm, NSG 403
Every time an author writes a new work they create a new world. As authors, and therefore world builders, how do we see visions of the ideal? How do fictional other worlds reflect back on our lived reality? In this class we will explore the radical world building techniques of world-building masters, and investigate how the conceit of their projects reveals the reality of the author’s lived experience in significant and magnified ways. Special emphasis will be placed on exploring the uses of invented and foreign languages as tools for world building. Students will engage with the work of these world-building masters through discussion, in-class writing prompts, and group critique.
The first session of this class will take place in the week of June 3, 2024. Please note that all classes will be double sessions (9am - 1 pm).
This seminar is part of the B.A. module "Literature and Culture III" (04-001-1011) and the Lehramts Module "US Popular Culture and American Literature" (04-AME-1701)