Description

Few places inspire writers so reliably as Rome and the hillside towns of the surrounding country. Participants in the Creative Writing in Rome program may focus on the art of composing either poetry or travel narratives. University of Dallas professors of literature and creative writing will offer instruction regarding style and technique, lead discussions of exemplary poems and essays, and guide participants through inspiring sites in and near the Eternal City. In several directed “workshop” sessions, participants will receive generously critical commentary on their new writing from the professors and their peers.

Each participant will enroll in either the poetry-writing or travel-writing component. Both are organized around seven seminar discussions, four workshops, and excursions on at least six days to many, many sites of inspiration. In addition to four trips into Rome’s museums, churches, public squares, parks, and restaurants, we will visit local Castelli Romani towns (each perched on the rim of a volcanic lake) and either Tivoli, with its fountain-abundant Villa d’Este, or the ancient Umbrian butte-top community of Orvieto, with its gorgeously edificed and frescoed, thirteenth-century Duomo.

The poetry-writing section will treat lyric as a threshold to the marvelous and give special emphasis to ekphrastic emulations of, or other engagements with, visual art. Guided by the work of such contemporary masters as Seamus Heaney, Richard Wilbur, and Jorie Graham, we will learn how sound and sense may be shaped to movingly represent image-rich terrains, to take on texture and layered meanings like a painting, to encapsulate a story in a moment like a sculpture. Like the relics of Rome, lyric has both an aptitude for monumentality (due to its durable rhythms, rhymes, and salient figures) and a tolerance for fragmentation, for significant ruin. In addition to regular discussions regarding technique, four several-hour workshops will give writers an opportunity to comment upon the efforts of others and to hear their thoughts regarding one’s own new poems. Writers generally find that a community of candid, generously spirited critics is invaluable as they refine their art. Leading this section will be poet and poetry scholar Dr. Andrew Osborn. A graduate of Harvard, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the University of Texas at Austin, he teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Dallas.

Italy has inspired some of the most compelling travel writing of the entire tradition of this art. Goethe, Byron, James, Lawrence, and even the irreverent Twain found Italy a place that moved them to record their impressions and experiences, working out their thoughts and reactions for readers “back home.” Today, books about visiting and living in Italy line the shelves of the local bookstores. The travel writer strives to convey the Genius loci from his or her own unique angle of vision, conveying place and interaction with the spaces and people encountered. Guided by the greats, and with some glances at contemporaries, we will work together to refine the arts of seeing, recording, and responding that are the heart of all great travel writing. We will pair with the Poetry section to visit evocative and powerful sites which drew those on the Grand Tour and yet we will not ignore twenty-first century Italy and its beauties, tensions, and struggles. Workshops will focus on techniques of description and on finding one’s own voice and using the varied forms of Creative Nonfiction writing to achieve powerful prose. Leading this section will be Dr. Gregory Roper, Chair of the English Department at the University of Dallas, who lived and taught on the UD Rome Campus from 2003-2005 and from 2007-2009.

Highlights

A twelve-day program for adults from June 27 - July 8, 2012; available for credit as a 5000-level Humanities course or purely for educative, artful fun. Two emphases: Poetry (with Dr. Andrew Osborn) or Travel Writing (with Dr. Greg Roper). Participants will regularly visit sites of interest in and near Rome, then return to the Due Santi campus to read and discuss exemplary poems or essays, learn about style and technique, eat, relax, and write write write. Each course will also include several intensive writing workshops and reading presentations. Participants are responsible for getting themselves to campus. Alumni & teachers may qualify for discounts. Director: Andrew Osborn; Assistant Director: Greg Roper.

Minimum Education

Bachelors

Subject Areas

• Art/fine Arts
• Creative Writing

Cost in US$:

3450

Program Fees Include:

The USD3,450 program cost includes the for-credit tuition or non-credit course fee, standard on-campus accommodation, meals, and faculty-led tours in Rome and elsewhere. There is an additional USD200 fee for for-credit registration.

Experience Required

no

This Program is open to

American Participants.

Typical Living Arrangements

• Dormitory

Participants Travel

Independently

Application Process Involves

• Online Application plus Application Assessment

Typically The Application Process Time is

4 weeks

University of Dallas's Mission Statement

The University of Dallas is a Catholic institution that seeks to educate its students, to develop intellectual and moral virtues, to prepare themselves for life and work, and to become leaders in the community. Through intensive teaching, interactive discourse, and critical analysis, the university pursues truth, virtue, and wisdom in the liberal arts and professional studies.

Year Founded

1956