These are the options for themes to focus on during our semester together. Collaboration is important to me, so if you would like to add anything, please contact me.
Health & Beauty
MEntal Health
Reading: Esme Weijun Wang: “Perdition Days: on experiencing psychosis” from The Toast or “Toward a Pathology of the Possessed” from the Believer
Exercise Write a mental health inventory
Body Image
Reading: Saachi Koul, “What I learned from a fitting-room disaster about clothes and life” from the Walrus
Exercise What do you see when you look in a mirror?
Illness
Reading: Eula Biss “The pain scale” from Creative Nonfiction
Exercise Write about a time you were in pain that no one else could see.
Addictions
Reading: David Sedaris, “Letting Go” From the New Yorker
Exercise Write about something you have tried to or have given up for your health.
Food
Food & Culture
Reading: Michelle Zauner, “Crying in H-Mart” from The New Yorker
Exercise Write about a cultural food that is significant to you.
Cooking
Reading: Gina Mei “Learning to Cook for one” from Electric Literature
Exercise: Write about your favorite meal to cook for yourself.
Tradition
Reading: David Foster Wallace “consider the lobster” from Originally Published in Gourmet
Exercise Write about a food-based tradition you partake in.
Comfort Food
Readings: Selected short essays from the Taco Bell Quarterly
Exercise: Write about your comfort food.
Writing, Reading, and Speaking
Writing and Purpose
George Orwell “Why I write” from The Orwell Foundation
Storytelling
Lidia Yuknavitch “Woven” from Guernica
Language
Gloria Anzaldua “how to tame a wild tongue” originally published in Boderlands/La Frontera
The internet
Sabrina Qiao “Writing FanFiction gave me Community and Creative Freedom” Electric Lit
Relationships
Romance
Maggie Nelson excerpt from Bluets
Or
selections from The New York Times‘ Modern Love Series
Friendship
Anthony Veasna So “Baby Yeah” from N+1
Family
James Baldwin “Notes of a Native Son” from Notes of a Native Son
or
Billy-Ray Belcourt, “An NDN Boyhood” from The Paris Review
Self
Anne Carson “The Glass Essay” from Glass, Irony, and God
Travel Writing
70s San Francisco, CA
Joan Didion “Slouching toward Bethlehem” Saturday Evening Post
Atlantic City, NJ
John Mcphee “The Search for Marvin Gardens” from The New Yorker
Savannah, Georgia
Anjali Enjeti “Drinking Chai to Savannah: Reflections on Identity, Inclusion and Power in the South” from LongReads
On the Road, Cross Country
Emilia Phillips “Lodge: a lyric essay” from Blackbird
The Lake
E.B. White “Once More to the Lake” originally published in Harper’s
Pop Culture & Politics
Maligned Women — Tanya Harding
Sarah Marshall “Remote Control” from The Believer
Feminism
Roxane Gay “Bad Feminist” from VQR online
Mass Media
George Saunders “The Braindead megaphone” from The Braindead megaphone
Politics
Fintan O’Toole “The Designated Mourner” from NY Review of Books
Race
