ENGL 284/Spring 2025
Condon Hall (CDH) 141
M/W, March 31 – June 6
We are mortal beings. There is as yet no evidence of god. We live in a digitized culture. Art is related to the body and to the culture. Art should reflect these things. Brevity rules.
A sustained argument for the excitement and urgency of brevity; a rally for compression, concision, and velocity; and a meditation on the brevity of human existence.
Participation counts; it will affect your grade. However, please don’t comment just to comment. Try to contribute judiciously, effectively, thoughtfully, and generously.
My email: dshields@davidshields.com; my website: www.davidshields.com
Office hours: Friday, 3-5 pm. Or email or text me (206.661.0933), and we can schedule a different time to talk in person, by phone, or by Zoom.
Syllabus is tentative; dates may change due to # of ppl in class.
University Book Store has the course’s one required text: Life Is Short—Art is Shorter: In Praise of Brevity (edited and written by David Shields, Elizabeth Cooperman), https://ubookstore.com/adoption-search
Students will read the book and do the prompts suggested by the book. We’ll do as many of them as we can. Read the whole book on your own, page by page, including the commentaries by Elizabeth Cooperman and me (we’re the book’s co-editors). In class, students and I will discuss individual chapters, as time allows. Crucial that you read the book on your own, chapter by chapter, as we go and/or all the way through.
In class, students will read aloud their work and critique one another’s work; that is the focus of the course.
Students will learn the virtue of brevity, the key principles of literary composition in general (for novels, short stories, essays, etc.), and the many gestures available to the contemporary writer.
This is not a course in fiction or nonfiction. This is a course in prose composition or in prose strategies. In how to write. You can write whatever you want: prose-poem, essay, fiction, hybrid work.
You can submit as many revisions as you want during exam week: due on Friday of exam week.
Questions? Concerns? Requests? Corrections?
March 31. Intro to course.
April 2. Read Intro, Object, Prose-Poem, Image Becomes Metaphor. Write your own brief story or essay in which an object (or image) becomes a metaphor; upload to Discussion in Canvas; discuss in class (bring laptops to class).
April 7. Same.
April 9. Same.
April 14. Quarrel/Happiness.
April 16. Same
April 21. Same.
April 23. Decades
April 28. Same.
April 30. Same.
May 5. Collage.
May 7. Same.
May 12. Same.
May 14. Trick story.
May 19. Same.
May 21. Same.
May 26. Memorial Day. No Class.
May 28. Guilty Elegy.
June 2. Same.
June 4. Due final day of exam period: portfolio of revisions.