Seeing the City Afresh: Writing About the Modern City Course number: 11.S947 Instructor: Garnette Cadogan, [email protected] Tuesdays, 6:30 p.m. —8:30 p.m., 9 credits Office hours: By appointment; phone number upon request
Brief Description:
The modern city—with its attractive industry, infectious vitality, strange solitudes, and wide human contrasts—gathers peoples and forces with such dynamism that it is as incomprehensible as it is interesting. How, then, do we thoughtfully grasp its animating tensions, attuned to a rich understanding of the multitudinous lives and sensibilities and institutions that populate it? We make sense of this variegated city by telling its stories.
Through extensive reading and writing, students will explore the promise and perils of the city, focusing on topics that deserve urgent attention: migration, climate change, inequality, racial injustice, public space. We will strive to create artful narratives as we concentrate on three nonfiction forms—essay, memoir, longform journalism—and acquaint ourselves with other forms that enrich the imagination—poetry, fiction, audio essay, photo essay, film. And we will be joined by guests whose work offers a model for thoughtful, fresh engagement with the city. Special emphasis will be on the role of the writer as the reader’s advocate and on the indispensability of the writer-editor relationship. The goal—the hope—is to write about cities with greater creativity and sophistication for specialized- and general-interest audiences.
Expectations and Responsibilities:
A seminar is a directed conversation—at its heart is listening. Come prepared to talk and reflect, and, above all else, ready to listen. You will be at a disadvantage if you haven’t read the assigned readings—after all, reading is a type of listening; you give your intellect and imagination over to the images, ideas, worlds of another. Prepare, then. Otherwise, you rob yourself and your peers of not only insight but also respect.
A conversation invites—nay, requires—you to actively and generously participate. Not that you need a reminder, but here we go: A generous participant doesn’t hog the limelight, courteously raises objections, humbly gives and receives criticisms, and honors the intelligence and dignity of those around. This means focusing on one conversation at a time—the one before you, refusing the distractions accessed through a smartphone or laptop or sketchpad (or notebook converted into a sketchpad for doodles). And introverts need not worry: If you need time to till your mind, that’s fine; as long as your ears and eyes are engaged, and you eventually contribute in class, you’ll be considered an active participant.
If you have half-formed thoughts, strange theories, confused ideas, and anything else you fear will make you less valuable in conversation, you are not alone. Come as you are, and think alongside us. This class is, in part, a reminder that writing is more than a solitary practice: it is social in sensibility, a conversation across space and time, with people near and far, dead and alive, as we move from connecting to others through reading to connecting to others through discussion and writing (writing, of course, that never loses sight of its readers).
This seminar is also an arena for you to take risks. You might be tempted to censor important parts of you that are messy, weird, playful, dark, complex, religious, anti-religious—that is, you might tiptoe as you write. Each week, then, we will respond primarily to the assigned readings and engage with each other with the generosity and respect that encourages us to take risks. Remind yourself of this before every class.
Because the class will be a workshop in which we’ll look at each other’s work, you are expected to conduct yourself with the decency that fosters trust and allows others to take risks. You should not discuss or show the work of your peers to anyone outside of this class; even discussing someone’s work when the person is in the company of others is to be avoided.
You will be writing as professionals, so I expect you to attend every class—you’ll lose marks on your final grade for unexcused absences or consistent tardiness.
The heaviest intellectual lifting you’ll do is your final project, a narrative (Due May 15) whose natural length I expect to be between 2,000 to 2,500 words. You’ll write in different forms— commentary, criticism, memoir, essay, reportage-informed narrative—all building on the other. A series of assignments before your final essay, each increasingly weighed more as the semester progresses, will train your writing muscles and simultaneously strengthen your understanding of the city. You’ll have exercises—maintain a notebook; create a music playlist; fact-check an essay—that will, in tandem with the written assignments, build to a portfolio. The portfolio will be most determinative of your final grade. Why? I’d like to inculcate in you the idea that good writers focus on creating a body of work, and the arc of your work—more than a single piece— should be squarely in your focus. Also, organization is crucial to writing, and it’s good to work on organizing your work along with organizing your thoughts.
As a result, I’d like you to “take” your portfolio to every class. (Sometimes I’ll have you pull work from it for in-class exercises). All your work should be in this portfolio, in chronological order. For every assignment, as of the second page (through the end) have the following on the top right margin: page number, surname, assignment number (“Assignment 1”; “In-class exercise 2,” etc.), due date. The font should be serif (easier to read; examples include Times Roman, Courier, Palatino; fonts to avoid include Helvetica, Arial, Geneva).
Thus, the top right corner of a page from an assignment looks like this:
2 Cadogan Assignment 2 March 2, 2021
Perfect is the enemy of done. Let me shout as I repeat: Perfect is the enemy of done! Better to give me an incomplete essay than none at all. Life is complicated; bad things happen; brain cells stubbornly refuse to cooperate when stress or grief drop-kicks you. I’ll work to accommodate you if you need to submit something late. Each assignment builds on the previous one, so if you are playing catch-up with one assignment, you are already falling behind with subsequent ones. If you get stuck, don’t stand still and sink—let me know you’re flailing so I can extend a helping hand.
Feedback on your work will, in general, come a week—two weeks the latest—after you submit it, and you should feel free to contact me if you want to discuss it. If you’re in academic trouble, I’ll tell you right away.
If you have any learning disabilities, I’ll accommodate you—but I also want to meet with you to work on pedagogical adjustments that will make you thrive and not just endure in the class.
I’ve made clear that I expect you to learn from and be ready to teach each other (and me). Makes sense, doesn’t it? The best conversations are collaborative, involving a helpful give-and-take. Nonetheless, I expect the work you submit to be entirely your own. Draw on conversations you’ve had, but every sentence should be yours. Beg and borrow ideas, being conscientious to make clear when you’ve done so, but don’t steal. Don’t pass off someone else’s ideas or sentences (verbatim or closely recast) as yours. You owe your sources more; you owe your classmates and instructor more; you certainly owe yourself much more. (Please see “Eight Reasons Plagiarism Sucks,” Jack Shafer, Slate, 3/7/08). And if you disagree, there’s always MIT’s policy on academic integrity, which I will uphold in cases when students choose not to.
Quite often, cheating in academic environments is the product of panic. Someone gets overwhelmed and tries to find a way out, allowing anxiety to overtake reason and decency. So: If you start to fret, contact me. Let me know you need help. Don’t lose confidence in your ability to tell a good story. And don’t fall into one of the oldest and saddest of stories: throwing away your integrity to get ahead.
A class should not just be an extension of the instructor’s expectations and preferences. Students have expectations, too, and jotting them down in an evaluation at the end of the semester is often too late for the class to reap the benefits. Throughout the semester, please let me know what does and doesn’t work for you. “You’re boring” is too general to be helpful. Let me know the particularities that grate or edify you and I’ll adjust, best I can, to ensure the learning experience is enriching for you.
Grades are assessed with 60% of the weight for written work, 20% for class attendance and participation, 5% for quizzes, 15% for editorial responses to student papers. An A+ is awarded to work that is consistently, without exception, spectacular—work that would be published in a first-rate general-interest publication—along with attendance, participation, and comportment that is outstanding and beyond reproach. An A is given to stellar work and participation. An A- is given to excellent work and in-class performance, a B+ is very good work and in-class performance, B is for good work and performance, B- for work and participation that was fair, C for work and performance that is subpar, and D and below for work and performance that not only was weak but also didn’t show promise. F? We won’t talk about F—too depressing, don’t you think?
Calendar of Readings, Listenings, Viewings, and Assignments:
The readings in this seminar do not provide a general history or theory of cities. Our focus is on selected readings that are, for the most part, outstanding prose on cities. Many offer fresh insights on perennial problems. Most are models of writing and analysis you’ll want to read and re-read. All will illuminate our understanding of cities. (My approach means you will miss some important thinkers on the city, but the consolation is that you will encounter wonderful and wise voices you might not have otherwise met). We will discuss ideas that are execrable, not to scorn or mock—after all, we all have ideas that we’ll one day laugh or cringe at—but to get a firmer grasp on understanding cities and identifying good writing.
“Reading, writing, revision, reading reading, observing, listening, writing writing writing. More revision. More reading.”—That’s a good summary of this class.
Bookshelf of Support:
Fine reference books on writing that are helpful but not necessary for this class, and that will be of great benefit if they are within close reach as you start to treat your prose with care, are immediately below. Don’t let the word “reference” put you off; you will turn to these indispensable assistants-cum-teachers frequently. It goes without saying that you should own an excellent—which means, recent version (since language is dynamic and ever-evolving)—desk dictionary. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate is my recommendation, though American Heritage College and Webster’s New World are good runners-up. (Online, www.merriam-webster.com is a must; it’s more up-to-date than all the aforementioned).
Your dream reference team:
The Copyeditor’s Handbook, 4th Edition, edited by Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition [This is the style guide this class will follow] Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, 3rd Edition [thesaurus for grown-ups]
If you are not ready to go whole hog with a reference library, and are not familiar with the style requirements of the Chicago Manual of Style (default for this class; all assignments will be judged by this, not MLA or any other style manual), then purchase the mini-me version, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 9th Edition, ed. Kate Turabian and others. And for an authoritative, unstuffy—indeed, fun—guide to style, grammar, clarity, common sense in writing, etc. get Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. Written by the longtime copy chief for Random House, this indispensable book should displace the overrated The Elements of Style from your library. (I DO NOT recommend the much-lauded Strunk & White, except as a historical curiosity—a winsome, delightful, often- outdated guide you should dip in, but not refer to when in search of judgment).
The work schedule is as follows (subject to tweaks depending on the evolution of the seminar’s interests and needs):
MOVEMENT I: FOUNDATIONS
WEEK ONE, 2/23/21. On Trust.
Watch: “George Saunders: On Story,” Directed by Sarah Klein and Tom Mason, 2015 (Duration: 7 minutes)
Read: “Beyond the Maximum: Cities May Be Booming, But Who’s Invited to the Party?” Suketu Mehta, The Guardian, November 30, 2015
“Find Your Beach,” Zadie Smith, The New York Review of Books, November 7, 2013
“Where is the Fiction About Climate Change?” Amitav Ghosh, The Guardian, October 28, 2016
“Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds,” Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, February 27, 2017
“Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work,” Edwidge Danticat, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work
“Purity and Security: Towards a Cultural History of Plexiglass,” Shannon Mattern, Places Journal, December 2020.
Listen [song]: “We the People,” A Tribe Called Quest, on We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, 2016
Watch: “George Saunders: On the Relationship Between Reader and Writer,” Directed by Sarah Klein and Tom Mason, 2015 (Duration: 1.5 minutes)
Assignment No. 1: Write a 600-word essay on what one particular city means to you and use that experience to elucidate why cities are important.
GUEST: Suketu Mehta
WEEK TWO, 3/2/21. On Possibility.
Read: “My Twentieth Century Evening—and Other Small Breakthroughs,” Kazuo Ishiguro, Nobel Lecture, 2017
“Write Till You Drop,” Annie Dillard, The New York Times, May 28, 1989
“The Storytellers of Empire,” Kamila Shamsie, Guernica Magazine, February 1, 2012
Introduction to Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World, ed. John Freeman
“My Eighty-Six Jobs,” Kerri Arsenault, New York Review of Books, September 1, 2020
Listen [podcast]: “Antediluvian,” Vann R. Newkirk II, Part I, Floodlines: The Story of An Unnatural Disaster
Read: “Street, Haunting,” David Ulin, in Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, pp. 1-10
Listen [song]: “Box Full of Letters,” Wilco, on the album A.M.
Assignment No. 2: Write a letter that explains what makes a good story. The catch? Do so through focusing on an unfamiliar or overlooked (for you) voice or set of voices in the city.
GUEST: Kerri Arsenault
WEEK THREE, 3/16/21. On Seeing.
Listen [spoken word]: “Jaws,” Gil Scot Heron, on A Talk: Bluesology/Black History/Jaws/The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, 1982 (bonus track on The First Minute of a New Day)
Watch: “A Boy Named Charlie Brown” (1969) opening scene
Read: “What Lies Beneath,” Robert Macfarlane, The Guardian, April 20, 2019
“What Lies Beneath,” William Langewiesche, Vanity Fair, October 2013
“Speech Sounds,” Octavia E. Butler, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, 1983
“Remapping LA,” Carolina A. Miranda, Guernica Magazine, February 19, 2019
“Mapping History,” David Ulin, in Sidewalking, pp. 80-97
“The Banality of Empathy,” Namwali Serpell, New York Review of Books, March 2, 2019
Listen [podcast, song]: “The Promise: Life, Death, and Change in the Projects,” Part 2: A Beautiful Day In The Projects, Nashville Public Radio
Watch: “member: Pope.L, 1978-2001 | MoMA EXHIBITION,” short video on Pope.L’s use of his body to challenge how we see and examine inequality and division
Assignment No. 3: Write a 600- to 800-word essay that draws on your close, patient observations from walking around your neighborhood, giving a rich portrait of the city through the character of your neighborhood.
GUEST: David Ulin
MOVEMENT II: EXPLORATIONS
WEEK FOUR, 3/30/21. On Uncertainty.
Listen [podcast]: “The Promise: Life, Death, and Change in the Projects,” Nashville Public Radio, Part 1: A Change Is Gonna Come
Read: “Climate Signs,” Emily Raboteau, New York Review Daily, February 1, 2019
“Obligations 2,” Layli Long Soldier, from New Poets of Native Nations
“The Really Big One,” Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, July 20, 2015
“Letter From Seattle: A Season of Peaceful Protest,” Claudia Castro Luna, Literary Hub, September 17, 2020
“A Walker in the City,” in Sidewalking, pp. 122-132
Assignment No. 4: Write a three-paragraph pitch for the final paper. The pitch, meant for a magazine that publishes for a general-interest audience, should focus on a problem in the city. Explain in your pitch why you are the person to write the proposed story, why now is the time for this story, and why it should be of interest to the editor and the magazine’s audience.
*The following two articles will help one think about the pitch:
“7 Fatal Flaws of Story Pitches,” Jacqui Banaszynski, Nieman Storyboard, September 3, 2020
GUEST: Emily Raboteau
WEEK FIVE, 4/6/21. On Visibility and Vulnerability.
Listen [song]: “Living for the City,” Stevie Wonder, on Innervisions, 1973
Watch: Trailer for “Human Flow,” Ai Wei Wei, director
Read: “‘Bright Unbearable Reality’: Migration As Seen from Above,” Anna Badkhen, New York Review of Books, January 2, 2021
“Power Walking,” Aminatta Forna, Literary Hub, September 19, 2018
“Girl,” Alexander Chee, Guernica Magazine, March 16, 2015
“The Facts of Art,” Natalie Diaz, in When My Brother Was An Aztec
“A True Picture of Black Skin,” Teju Cole, The New York Times, February 18, 2015
“Lime Light Blues,” Kevin Young, in Dear Darkness: Poems
“Busted in New York,” Daryll Pinckney, The New Yorker, January 29, 2001
Listen [podcast]: “Come Sunday,” Part II, Floodlines: The Story of An Unnatural Disaster, hosted by Vann R. Newkirk II
Assignment No. 5: Revise your pitch (i.e. revise Assignment 4) drawing on the insights of this article: “Economic Hardship Reporting Project seeks story pitches that personalize poverty,” Carly Stern, Nieman Storyboard, September 2, 2020
WEEK SIX, 4/13/21. On Resistance.
Read: “How the Homeless Listen to Music,” Chris Estey, The Common Reader, February 29, 2016
“How Extreme Weather is Shrinking the Planet,” Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, November 26, 2018
“Eric Garner and Me,” Clifford Thompson, Los Angeles Review of Books, March 13, 2015
“Surviving Racism through Storytelling,” Terese Marie Mailhot, Pacific Standard, May 8, 2018
“Georgia on My Mind,” Shirley Elizabeth Thompson, New York Review of Books, November 19, 2020
Read and Look: “Knit Club,” Carolyn Drake, Magnumphotos.com
Listen: “The Promise: Life, Death, and Change in the Projects,” Part 4: The Great Divide, Nashville Public Radio
Assignment No. 6: Make a music playlist (length: 20 to 30 minutes) for that uses the musical arc to give the listener a clear sense of the narrative arc of your paper.
GUEST: Shirley Elizabeth Thompson
WEEK SEVEN, 4/27/21. On Belonging (and Exclusion).
Listen [song]: “Black Like Me,” Mickey Guyton, on Bridges, 2020
“Through the Looking Glass,” Part III, Floodlines: The Story of An Unnatural Disaster, hosted by Vann R. Newkirk II
Read: “Revealing and Obscuring Myself on the Streets of New York,” Hilton Als, The New Yorker, October 2, 2018
“Black Body: Rereading James Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village”,” Teju Cole, The New Yorker, August 19, 2014
“The State,” Tommy Orange, The New Yorker, March 19, 2018
“Foreign-Returned,” Sadia Shephard, The New Yorker, January 1, 2018
“The City That Bleeds: Freddie Gray and the Makings of an American Uprising,” Lawrence Jackson, Harpers, July 2016
“Chris Ofili: Chained in Paradise,” Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, New York Review of Books, September 24, 2018
“A Report From Occupied Territory,” James Baldwin, The Nation, July 11, 1966
“Falling Down,” David Ulin, in Sidewalking, pp. 36-57
Listen [podcast]: “The Color Line in the Americas,” Hazel Carby and Adam Shatz, LRB Conversations, January 12, 2020
Watch: 12 O’Clock Boys, Lotfy Nathan (director; release: 2014) or Whose Streets?, Sabaah Folayan (director; release: 2017)
Assignment No. 7: Create a working bibliography and list of resources for your project that is aware to the influence of chance, perceptible and imperceptible, on your topic and that will help shape the structure of your paper.
GUEST: TBA
MOVEMENT III: REFLECTIONS
WEEK EIGHT, 5/4/21. On Futures.
Read: “Design for the Future When the Future is Bleak,” Nikil Saval, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, September 28, 2020
“The City Born Great,” N. K. Jesimin, Tor, September 28, 2016
“Machandiz,” Edwidge Danticat, in Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World, ed. John Freeman
“The New Monuments That America Needs,” Hua Hsu, The New Yorker, September 15, 2020
“Spring in Wadi Delab, the Valley of the (Absent) Plane Tree,” Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson, in Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World, ed. John Freeman
“Behind the Mask,” Peter L’Official and Johana Londono, Urban Omnibus, February 3, 2021
“The Spaces That Make Cities Fairer and More Resilient,” Nicholas de Monchaux, The New York Times, May 12, 2020
Listen [spoken word]: “I, Too,” Langston Hughes, on Langston Hughes Recordings
Listen [podcast]: “The Promise: Life, Death, and Change in the Projects,” Part 6: The Future, Nashville Public Radio
Look: “Carpoolers,” Alejandro Cartagena
Assignment No. 8: Write a rough draft of final paper (a 2,500-word narrative that’s driven by a problem in the city).
GUEST: Nicholas de Monchaux
WEEK NINE, 5/11/21. On Memory.
Watch: “If Civil War Reenactments Were Honest,” Key & Peele, Season 2, Episode 1
Read: “The Way We Live Now: 11-11-01; Lost and Found,” Colson Whitehead, The New York Times, November 11, 2001
“Thirteen to One: New Stories for an Age of Disaster,” Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Emergence Magazine
“Mapping Home,” Aleksandar Hemon, The New Yorker, November 28, 2011
“My Mother’s Dreams for Her Son, and All Black Children,” Hilton Als, The New Yorker, June 29, 2020
“why some people be mad at me sometimes,” Lucille Clifton, How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton
“Brownies,” ZZ Packer, in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
“Miracle Mile,” in Sidewalking, pp. 98-122
“Pedestrian Crossing, Charlottesville,” Rita Dove, June 29, 2020
Read & View: “’They Will Remember Us’: The Miners of Black Harlan,” Radcliffe Roye, New York Review of Books, May 3, 2019
Listen: “The Promise: Life, Death, and Change in the Projects,” Part 5: Get Some Gone, Nashville Public Radio
Assignment No. 9: Revise draft of final paper.
GUEST: Marie Mutsuki Mockett
WEEK TEN, 5/18/21. On Imagination.
Read: “The Storytellers of the Earth,” Sulaiman Addonia, in Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World, ed. John Freeman
“Los Angeles Plays Itself,” in Sidewalking, pp. 11-35
“The Inward Migration in Apocalyptic Times,” Alexis Wright, Emergence Magazine
“Dinosaurs in the Hood,” Danez Smith, Poetry, December 2014
“Unethical Reading and the Limits of Empathy,” Namwali Serpell and Maria Tumarkin, The Yale Review, Winter 2020
“The Absurdities of Race,” Paul Gilroy and Adam Shatz, LRB Conversations, August 18, 2020
Watch: Tony Morrison on writing about race, on Charlie Rose, January 19, 1998
Read:
“Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, 2015
Assignment No. 10: Final project—a 2,500-word narrative that’s driven by a problem in the city.
GUEST: John Freeman
Bonus, for one of the weeks we don’t have class (that is, if you don’t have reading or assignments to catch up on):
The Writer-Editor Relationship.
Watch: “Mary the Writer,” Mary Tyler Moore Show, Season 7, Episode 2, October 2, 1976 (a delightful 24 minutes)
Read: “A Thing Meant to Be: The Work of a Book Editor,” Rebecca Saletan, Poets & Writers (online), April 11, 2018
“Widening the Gates: Why Publishing Needs Diversity,” Chris Jackson, in What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing, ed. Peter Ginna
Claire Messud and Robin Desser in conversation, Slate, May 3, 2013
“Robert Gottlieb: The Art of Editing No. 1,” interviewed by Larissa MacFarquhar, The Paris Review, Issue 132, Fall 1994