Summer Section

ENGL 790: Writing for Diverse Publics

Instructor: Randall Fuller (randallfuller@ku.edu) 

This course, open to all English graduate students, will provide an intensive workshop devoted to writing for audiences beyond specialists in our field. (We will, however, discuss the form of the academic essay in some depth.) Writing for larger publics is becoming an increasingly important facet of humanistic careers within and without the academy. We will encounter approaches and techniques for writing op-eds, podcasts, book reviews, and general interest articles and books—all based upon your classroom and dissertation research. Course readings will include work by practitioners of public humanities, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Claudia Rankine, Stephen Greenblatt, Jill Lepore, Saidiya Hartmann, and others. Topics will include how to make theory legible for general audiences without sacrificing its complexity; the relationship between narrative and argument; and the role of humanistic knowledge for social activism. The class will be supplemented with Zoom visits by writers and editors, and the final product of class will be a portfolio of polished writing, including an op-ed, a podcast script, and a full-length essay.