CRWT 40.04 Remains, Ruin, Repair, and Rapture: Trends in Urban Poetics

In the center of Detroit, Michigan sits the completely enclosed, far smaller city of Hamtramck, with its own mayor, police department, fire department and history of generations of Polish immigrants. Two urban centers connected by borders and across borders by rich poetries that place pressure upon  stereotypes of the "urban."

In this course, we will consider essays, poetry and interviews that dare interrogate and upturn common assumptions around the demographics and expectations of urban centers and the arts and letters that rise from them. We will write critical as well as creative responses to the readings.We will resist "outside" definitions and privilege the self-defining texts of the authors we study who are writing from their experiences within these sites of growth and failings, allegiances and loss, flight and fury. Readings will include work by: Jacek Dehnel, Francine Harris, Jamaal May, Matthew Olzmann, and Adam Zagajewski among others

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:ART; WCult:W

The Timetable of Class Meetings contains the most up-to-date information about a course. It includes not only the meeting time and instructor, but also its official distributive and/or world culture designation. This information supersedes any information you may see elsewhere, to include what may appear in this ORC/Catalog or on a department/program website. Note that course attributes may change term to term therefore those in effect are those (only) during the term in which you enroll in the course.

Department-Specific Course Categories

Course Group III