ENG 210-01 - Studies in Genre

4 credits (Spring)

“Diaries and Journals.” Kept through the ages by a wide diversity of famous and ordinary people, this resilient form of writing resides somewhere between literary creation and primary historical source, between unspoken thought and public record, poised in the “now” between past and future. Is the diarist a disembodied self, or does the experience lived out in one’s body matter on the page? Has a conventional style of diary-writing developed and if so, what are its features? What makes a diary so different from a memoir? Do people keep diaries now for the same reasons as other diarists did in the past? With a focus on British and American traditions-including the tradition of African American diaries-we will study theories of the genre, examine formal conventions in published and unpublished diaries, and conduct a few experiments with diaries of our own.

Prerequisite: ENG 120 or ENG 121 for majors with grade S, C, or better; for non-majors, ENG 120 or ENG 121, with grade S, C, or better, or third-year standing
Instructor: P. Smith