Hooking first-years on the arts and humanities

Laura van den Berg, senior lecturer, and Neel Mukherjee, associate senior lecturer in creative writing in the Department of English, will co-teach “HUM 9: Reading for Fiction Writers” in the fall. The course introduces students to a range of texts, including Anton Chekhov, Ursula Le Guin, and Octavia Butler, to help them understand how reading shapes writing, and begin to write their own stories.

“We are trying to bring together the critical side of the English Department, which trains students in how to close-read, understand, and analyze the text, with the creative-writing side, which trains in technique and craft,” Mukherjee said. “We wanted to marry the two to show that good writing is always dependent on being a good reader.”

Read more from The Harvard Gazette here.