Summer Session I 2010

Santiago & Beyond: Creative Writing and the Literature of Chile
Mark AXELROD, Professor
Wilkinson Hall 226
(714) 997-6586
axelrod@chapman.edu  


Chile in the summer! Well, actually, Chile in our summer, but their winter. The six week course (3 in Santiago, 3 in Orange) will include reading texts not often taught in other courses. The reading list includes authors such as Pablo Neruda, Maria Luisa Bombal, Roberto Bolaño, Isabel Allende, Raúl Zurita, Nicanor Parra, Jose Donoso, Pia Barros, Antonio Skármeta, Ariel Dorfman, and Patricia Politzer. The authors are all Chilean and, for that reason, their writing will give the students a greater appreciation not only of Santiago and Chilean culture, but of the writers who wrote that culture.

There are two major goals for the course: 1) to have students work on their creative writing and 2) to immerse students in the literary/cultural life of Chile. To those ends, the course will include excursions to such venues as the Café Tavelli, the major literary café of Santiago; Neruda’s home in Bellavista; the Bellas Artes Museum; a tour of the Cholqui wine country and the Tres Palacios vineyards; perhaps a day trip to Viña del Mar and Valparaíso and the handcraft villages of Los Dominicos and the Feria Santa Lucia. The main objective is to engage the students in a creative literary experience of Santiago that will elicit creative writing based on the students’ experience of Santiago.

Accommodations will be in the NH Santiago located in the “heart” of Santiago’s Providencia only a few blocks from the Metro. Classes will be held in the conference room of the hotel and classes will be held in the hotel. Tuition waivers apply to those who qualify. Air travel will be on American Airlines from Orange County to Santiago, tours will be arranged and, of course, there will be free time for you to explore the majesty that is Santiago.