CSCL1911: Poetry and Social Change

At a time when creative forms of resistance are playing an increasingly significant role in what happens in public and political worlds, questions of language, metaphor, and aesthetics have become relevant to those who think about social change. How can poetry be a force of social change? How can poetry be a vehicle that repairs or aids in the recovery of social violence? Poetry, which derives from the term "poiesis," and means 'making' or 'creation,' is often seen as a means to express personal experience and as a way of generating new forms of collective imagination, but it is less often seen as something that can lead to social change or revolution. In this course, we will ask what makes a poem a poem and explore ideas about poetry's capacity for expression and activity, interpretation and change, thinking and acting. We'll read poetry that attempts to repair the damage wrought by political, environmental, and social destruction by looking at the role of poetry in social struggles.

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