People in Other Buildings
Too often writing is treated as peripheral rather than central to scholarship—it’s the drudgery that follows the important work of curiosity, research, analysis—but this mischaracterization is to the peril of the scholar. The craft of writing is also a crucial means of deepening academic research and presentation, developing scholarly communities, and developing habits of socialization into an academic field. This seminar will focus on writing for an audience that is broader than those huddled around one’s specialization—as the scholar and journalist Carlo Rotella once described it, an audience of “people in other buildings on campus.” We will work on producing compelling narrative, and will explore what it means—plus learn how—to write for an audience beyond one’s academic field. We will work on growing as writers and as editors who focus on structure, character, voice, tone, scenes, description, and fact-checking to produce more robust scholarship as we become more attuned to the relationship between scholarly discourse and research and socialization into one’s discipline. We will have visits from some of the country’s best scholars, writers, and editors, who will share their experiences and insights to expand our ambitions and lift our sights on what writing can accomplish.
Prerequisites/Co-requisites: An application letter Send a letter (of no more than 700 words) describing your academic research and interests, areas of intellectual focus, and related curiosities. All participants are required to work on an academic paper, journal article, dissertation chapter, book chapter, or magazine article rooted in academic research. Say what writing you will bring to the seminar and what you hope to accomplish with it, and discuss any interests in the seminar beyond improving your writing.