Sooner or later, loss is our inheritance, as public and private catastrophes shape our lives. In Writing Loss, we consider the productive possibilities in the workings of witness, mourning, absence, memory, and melancholy. This course approaches the condition of loss specifically through an engagement with a broad range of Asian American cultural productions, including essay, fiction, memoir, poetry, film, spoken word, and performance. Pondering the experience and aftermath of loss, we'll investigate how loss ruptures the 'known world' and engenders processes of grief, reckoning, and transformation. Course materials will be presented and discussed with interdisciplinary attention to historical, political, social, and gendered contexts. Students will produce two 3-4 page analytical essays, one oral presentation, short writings, and occasional memoir/creative writings. In Writing 1, students engage with diverse perspectives, histories, values, and cultures while evaluating systems of power and privilege. Writing expressively and analytically, they strengthen their skills of drafting, revision, and basic academic research. Students read, see, listen, discuss, and think critically about their own writing, the writing of their peers, and the assigned curriculum.

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