Scriptorium: Romance

Course Description

Summary

This Scriptorium, a “place for writing,” functions as a class for writers interested in improving their critical essay-writing skills. We will read to write and write to read. Much of our time will be occupied with discussion, writing, and revising—as essai means “trial” or “attempt." We will create new habits and strategies for our analytical writing. We will write in various essay structures with the aim of developing a well-supported thesis statement; in addition, we will revise collaboratively, improve our research and citation skills, and study grammar and style. Our learning goals include practicing to write with complexity, imagination, and clarity, as we read model examples in the genre of Romance, here defined as a text with a central love story. We will study classical and modern examples of romance and ask ourselves these inquiries: Why is Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights considered one of the “greatest romances” in literature? What are the tropes and the structures of romance in literature and in film? Why do audiences love happy endings and tragic endings? Who defines what is romantic and what is not? And, how is any love story a cultural story?

Readings may include Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, Shakespeare’s sonnets; short stories by Octavia Butler, Angela Carter, Ted Chiang, Manuel Gonzales, Clarice Lispector, and Aoko Matsuda; essays and theory by Roland Barthes, Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall, and Sianne Ngai. Finally, we will study Jacob Tierney’s Heated Rivalry (2025) and at least one romantic comedy.