For unit, we will consider Dave Eggers’ critically acclaimed, best-seller A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS (AHWOSG). As we read, and hopefully enjoy, this book, we’ll consider questions such as: What are the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction? How can a writer best represent the “truth”? What are a writer’s limitations in terms of telling-the-truth? How can a writer best represent the “self” or “selves”? And, what is the “self;” how is it constructed? What are Eggers’ strategies for dealing with these things? What are his strategies for making us like him? What does any or all of this have to do with the current popularity of “Reality” Television, and the memoir genre?
Besides reading Eggers’ book, we will do our own personal writing, engage in class discussions, and supplement our ideas about the book by reading interviews with Eggers, book reviews, scholarly work about the book, etc. (Some of this supplementary material is already linked on the class blog)
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