Writing About War: Seeking Narratives in

In Writing about War, seminar participants engage with a pressing matter of our age: how to evaluate facts and context and create compelling and precise narratives from the fog of war. This intensive writing seminar explores the special challenges of creating narrative and assessing truth claims in the context of violent conflict. In this course you will grow as a writer through extensive practice reporting, writing, revising, and editing your own work and that of your peers.

We will read accounts produced as journalism, policy analysis, advocacy, literature, and philosophy. We will discuss ongoing conflicts as well as historical cases, and grapple with questions of policy and ethics. Students will produce original reported narrative writing about conflict, which they may try to place for publication. Students should expect to write or revise an original piece most weeks of the semester. 

This course cultivates useful skills for any writer, whether they plan to write about conflict as a journalist, advocate, aid worker, policy analyst, or other field. The instructor places a premium on critical thinking and clear writing; grades reflect participation, effort, clarity of thought, reporting initiative, and narrative craft.