Course Name: ENG 38895/66895 Traveling and Writing

Description: Inspired by the environment—the landscape, art, culture, history, etc.—and by writers who have come before us, you may choose to write poetry, fiction, and/or nonfiction. As we try to absorb some portion of all we see and hear, we will employ Virginia Woolf’s practice of street haunting and consider Rainier Maria Rilke’s notion of inseeing. We will share poems or short vignettes, along with brief responses to readings, during classroom meetings, but half our time will be spent exploring. You will choose readings from a range of historical and contemporary poets and writers—from English-speaking travelers and expatriates like Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mina Loy, D. H. Lawrence, James Wright, Joseph Brodsky, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Rachel Cusk to Italians in translation like Boccaccio, Dante, Gaspara Stampa, Eugenio Montale, Cesare Pavese, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italo Calvino, and Patrizia Cavalli. Each week we will focus on a set of topics: art, myth, and religion; social justice and health care; history and politics; landscape and the environment. Related site visits will include places like the Basilica of Santa Trinita; the Museum of the Duomo; the Hospital of the Innocents Museum; the English Cemetery; Casa Guidi (home of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning); the Archaeological Area and Museum in the hillside town of Fiesole; the Cascine Park along the River Arno; and the Bardini Gardens and Villa. A longer work or a collection of polished poems or vignettes will be due at the end of the session.

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisites: None

This course is offered through the Kent Campus.  Please review course tuition at https://www.kent.edu/tuition to find costs for Kent campus tuition.