Winter 2003 Workshops at Writers & Books

 Read It! Seminars

Shakespeare Matters

• W3-107
• Seminar Leader: Jack Langerek [ bio ]
• Six alternating Wednesdays starting January 15, 4–6 pm
  (1/15, 1/29, 2/12, 2/26, 3/12 & 3/26)
• $95 W&B Members/$105 General Public
• Limit: 25

This seminar will dig into five of the bard’s plays and a number of his poems. If you’ve been wondering what the fuss is all about, this is your chance to learn about these works in a friendly and inviting discussion environment. If you’re already a Shakespeare fan, this is an opportunity to share your ideas about his work and gain from the insights of others.

The group will read and discuss Hamlet, Henry V and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and will select two additional works for exploration.

The sessions will be marked by lively conversation and participatory readings of portions of the plays under investigation. Join us for what is sure to be a dynamic and enriching Shakespearean experience.

The Bible as Literature

• W3-105
• Seminar Leader: Marcos Donnelly[ bio ]
• Six alternating Saturdays, starting January 18, 10 am–12 pm
  (1/18, 2/1, 2/15, 3/1, 3/15 & 3/21)
• $95 W&B Members/$105 General Public
• Limit: 25

Over a thousand years in the writing, it’s still the best-selling book of all time and the world’s most enduring anthology. This survey course approaches the Old and New Testaments via their literary forms—the persuasive essays of the prophets; the war poetry of King David; the debates of St. Paul and St. James; even the erotica of Solomon.

Our goal: To provide you with a richer literary appreciation of the genres the Bible’s authors used to write the Writ. So if you can’t distinguish Gnostics from synoptics, etiology from eschatology, or apocalypse from apocrypha, this is the easy-to-understand Bible as Literature course you’ve been looking for.

Beat Poetry

• W3-106
• Seminar Leader: Norm Davis [ bio ]
• Six alternating Mondays, starting January 20, 6:30–8:30 pm
  (1/20, 2/3, 2/17, 3/3, 3/17 & 3/31)
• $95 W&B Members/$105 General Public
• Limit: 25

In the first half of the 20th Century, American Literature gradually turned uncomfortably predictable, if not stale. Suddenly, out of nowhere, in the 1950’s, some so-called “Beat” poets and writers wrested control of the language away from Ivory Tower franchises, and dragged it back into the streets. Berets and bongos, cigarettes and coffeehouses, became a great deal (if not all) of the Literary “scene.”

• What was that all about?
• Is “Beat” dead today?
• Or does the Bohemian Spirit somewhere, somehow, survive?

Come explore a generation NOT lost with Norm Davis.

Reading Irish Literature

• W3-151
• Seminar Leaders: Alec Sutherland [ bio ] with Paul Morris [ bio ]
• Six alternating Wednesdays, starting January 22, 6:30–8:30
  (1/22, 2/5, 2/19, 3/5, 3/19 & 4/2)
• $95 W&B Members/$105 General Public
• Limit: 25

The reading for this seminar will emphasize some of the curious relationships between history and literature one finds in the Irish situation. The reading will include four Irish writers set against the background of Irish history:

• Jonathon Swift, A Modest Proposal
• William Butler Yeats, Kathleen ni Houlihan and Selected Poems
• Padraic Pearse, Selected Poems and Speeches
• James Joyce, A Portait of the Artist as a Young Man

The Poetics of Objects & Space

• W3-158
• Seminar Leader: Ken Wilson [ bio ]
• Six alternating Saturdays, starting January 18, 10 am–12 pm
  (1/18, 2/1, 2/15, 3/1, 3/15 & 3/29)
• $95 W&B Members/$105 General Public
• Limit: 25

What can happen when we stop in a text to allow the background of place and the debris of details to come forward? We will begin each session by examining strategies from a wide range of readings provided by the instructor:

• Imagism and Deep Imagism
• Imaginal Psychology
• Phenomenology
• Semiotics
• Cognitive Science
• The Visual Arts
• Human Geography

We will then use those strategies to explore and discover the resonance and significance of images and spaces in texts from modern poetry, fiction, and film. Students will begin reading in more precise and layered ways, and develop their own techniques of discovery. Some writers we’ll look at, to name a few, are:

• Roland Barthes
• Ezra Pound
• Robert Bly
• Marshall McLuhan
• William Carlos Williams
• Nicholson Baker
• Rick Bass

“If All of Rochester Read the Same Book”—Time Travel in Literature

• W3-191
• Seminar Leader: Steve Carper [ bio ]
• Six alternating Tuesdays starting January 21, 4-6 pm
  (1/12, 2/1, 2/18, 3/4, 3/18 & 4/1)
• $95 W&B Members/$105 General Public
• Limit: 25

The past fascinates us, haunts us, and makes us what we are today, giving us an irresistible urge to want to meddle with it.

• What would you do with a time machine?
• See the most famous events in history, live your life over again?
• But can we change the past without also changing who we are?

We’ll take a look at some of the ways writers have dealt with the thorny issue of time travel by reading a series of five provocative and satiric novels that will befuddle, enrage, and enthrall you, all in due time.

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