4-Week: Language of the Sublime

Arthur Schopenhauer says we experience the Sublime when "we feel ourselves reduced to nothing, feel ourselves as individuals, as living bodies, a transient appearances of the will, like drops in the ocean, fading away, melting away into nothing. The magnitude of the world, which we used to find unsettling, is now settled securely within ourselves." As writers, how do we express this overwhelming experience of joy, fear, incomprehensibility, and peace—the seemingly inexpressible? In this class, we'll investigate this question by reading stories of Franz Kafka, Julio Cortazar, Haruki Murakami, and others who have embraced non-traditional forms through the use of the weird, eerie, and magical realism to express their experiences of the Sublime. In addition to the readings, we'll have writing exercises that will help with our attempt to discover a language to express our encounters with the Sublime.