HUMA 20903
Collegiate Writing: The Art of Dreams
Course Instructor:
Michael Subialka ([email protected])
Writing Seminar Instructor:
TBD
Course Description:
What do dreams mean, how do we relate to them, and how can they challenge and transform
our perceptions of the world? This intensive course in analytical writing at the collegiate level
will offer a chance to think through these questions and to craft rhetorically-effective essays
that explore the art of dreams and the oneiric imagination encompassing literature, visual art,
film, and aesthetic theory. While dreams were classically viewed as messages to be interpreted,
in the 19th and 20th centuries an aesthetics of the dream began to take on a feverish life of its
own. In the seminar sessions, we will explore how art uses the experience of dreaming to
structure a new, sometimes twisted, representation of the world. Our exploration will take us
through major literary texts, from ancient Indian myths to the works of writers like Jorge Luis
Borges, Luigi Pirandello, Edgar Allan Poe, and the great Iranian modernist, Sagegh Hedayat,
critical philosophy and theory by visionary thinkers like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and André
Breton, and some of the most striking visual and filmic art of the 19 th and 20th centuries, such
as the paintings of Salvador Dalí and films by Federico Fellini and Christopher Nolan. In our
writing sessions, we will work closely to develop and refine the techniques of writing that will
allow each student to transform readings of those texts into powerful essays, using rhetorical
instruction materials and small group workshops that replicate the intensive writing seminars
taken by University of Chicago undergraduates.
Objectives:
My main goal is to help you craft more insightful, powerful academic essays. In order to do
this, we will need to focus on at least three fundamental skills that go into academic writing:
1. Close, analytical reading
2. Engagement with alternative views (discussion/debate)
3. Thorough revision
All of these skills will be taught and practiced in our daily class meetings with the goal that by
the end of the course you will be comfortable: (1) analyzing a variety of texts (written, visual,
and filmic) with a careful eye for nuance, (2) considering alternative viewpoints about those
texts, and (3) revising your initial analysis to construct more persuasive essays that will
communicate your nuanced argument to a reader.
We will engage with writing in a two-step process. For each essay, you will write a draft that
develops a close reading of the text in question and makes an argument about that text (or
makes an argument through that text). We will then go through an intensive process of revision,
using techniques developed during our morning sessions and in the writing seminars; these
techniques will help you re-frame your arguments to make them more persuasive and
compelling for a reader who may be reluctant to agree with the points you want to make.
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We will thus treat reading and writing as closely-integrated skills to be developed together. By
the end of the course, you should come away with new habits of reading and revising that will
help you to make more profound and compelling academic arguments in the future.
Course Texts (available in the Seminary Co-op Bookstore):
Borges, Jorge Luis. Ficciones. Ed. Anthony Kerrigan. Trans. Anthony Bonner. New York: Grove
Press, 1994.
Freud, Sigmund. On Dreams. Trans. M. D. Eder. New York: Dover, 2001.
Hedayat, Sadegh. The Blind Owl. Trans. D. P. Costello. New York: Grove Press, 2010.
Pirandello, Luigi. Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays. Trans. Mark Musa. New
York: Penguin, 1996.
Additional Texts (available on Chalk, https://chalk.uchicago.edu/
print and bring to class):
Baudelaire, Charles. The Flowers of Evil and Paris Spleen. Trans. William H. Crosby. Rochester,
NY: BOA Editions, 1991. (selections online)
Manifestoes of Surrealism. Trans. Richard
Seaver and Helen R. Lane. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969; pp. 1-47.
Dreams, Illusions and Other Realities. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1984; pp. 14-37 and 61-80.
Dreams. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Bollingen Series XX.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012; pp. 67-83.
Poe, Edgar Allan. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. (selections online)
(These texts are marked with * in the schedule)
Class Films:
Buñuel, Luis and Salvador Dalí. Un chien andalou. (to view in class)
Fellini, Federico. 8 ½. (to view in class)
Nolan, Christopher. Inception. (to view in class)
*Note: Students are also expected to make an Independent Museum Trip to the Art Institute
of Chicago to examine Surrealist and other art*
Schedule:
Date
Week 1:
Morning Session
Argument
Independent
Writing
Visual Art
Session
The
Meaning(s) of
Dreams:
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Afternoon Session
From Classical
Allegory to
Psychological
Manifestations
Assignment /
Assignment
Due
Argument I Arguing
for your Reader
Paper 1
Argument II Nuanced
Claims
Paper 1
Argument III Claims,
Evidence, and Reasons
Paper 1
Week 2:
Argument IV Close
Reading and
Interpretative Claims
Argument V
Counterarguments
Discourse Structure
Week 3:
Discourse Structure I
The Argument-Driven
Paragraph (Point)
Discourse Structure II
Index Positions and
Transitions
Discourse Structure III
Macrostructure and
Deep Arguments
Discourse Structure IV
Information Flow
(Macro-level)
Discourse Structure V
Information Flow
(Within Paragraphs)
Setting up a Problem
PROBLEM I Arguing
About Non-Written
Texts
PROBLEM II Textual
Conflicts (Resolving a
Problem)
PROBLEM III
Significance in Intros
and Conclusions
PROBLEM IV
Significance in Intros
and Conclusions
Final Paper Meetings
Dream
Allegories
Doniger*
Dream
Symbols
Symbolism
Dream
Symbols
Jung
Surrealist Art
Freud, I-VII
Un chien
andalou
Nightmare
Aesthetics:
Breton*
Paper 1 Due
The Dream and
Fantastic
Creation
Baudelaire*
Poe*
Paper 2
Paper 1
Freud, VIII-XIII
Jung*
Writing
Seminar 1
Breton*
Paper 1
Paper 1
Paper 2
Fantasy,
Caprice,
Grotesque
Student
Presentations
Paper 2
Student
Presentations
Hedayat, 3&4
(pp. 61-116)
Paper 2
Student
Presentations
Hedayat, 4&5 (pp.
116-146)
Paper 2
Student
Presentations
8 ½ (1:304:00pm)
Paper 3
Dream
Structures:
Art Institute
(Magritte)
The Art of
Paradox
Pirandello, pp. 2955
Paper 3
Student
Presentations
Pirandello, pp. 5588
Paper 3
Student
Presentations
Pirandello, pp. 128
Writing
Seminar 3
Paper 3
Student
Presentations
Paper 3
Conclusion
Borges, pp. 15-16,
57-63, 79-88, 89101, 105-6, 107-15,
129-41
Inception
Paper 3 Due
Paper 2
Hedayat, 1&2 (pp.
17-59)
Writing
Seminar 2
Paper 2 Due
Paper 3
Writing Seminars:
As a key component of our focus on developing strong, college-level academic writing
techniques, you will have the opportunity to work in a small, intensive writing seminar of four
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or five people. These seminars are led by University of Chicago writing instructors and are
designed to put the skills we work on into immediate practice.
For each seminar, you will be expected to come with a complete draft of the essay assignment
for that week; these drafts should be submitted online via the course chalk site, under your
group file exchange, and they are due on Tuesday by 7pm. This is a strict deadline, as your
peers will need to have time to print and read each essay submitted. That means you will also
constructive criticism of those drafts. You will need to bring a printed copy of each draft to
your writing seminar meeting.
Seminars will focus on using the skills we learn in class to help diagnose areas in need of revision
and to
its readers.
Attendance and active participation for all three writing seminars are required.
Student Presentations:
Each student will be responsible for leading the class discussion for a period of approximately
beginning of the course; they
perspective on the specific topic of the week and day, and (b) encourage active discussion and
debate among the whole class. These presentations should make use of techniques of
argumentation discussed in class. They will be an opportunity for students to develop skills in
oral communication, argumentation, and peer leadership.
Grading:
Papers: 60% (Paper 1, 10%; Paper 2, 20%; Paper 3, 30%)
Participation: 30% (attendance, preparation and discussion, weekly exercises, in-class
presentation/discussion leader/project)
Writing Seminars: 10% (attendance, timely posting of drafts, active seminar participation,
comments on peer drafts)
Office Hours:
Course Instructor: Monday-Friday, 11:00am-12:00pm and by appointment (email to setup a
time); Writing Seminar Instructor by appointment only.
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