(NWI) Bearing Witness: Writing, Documentary Studies and Social Justice

What is the writer’s, teacher’s, citizen’s or counselor’s role in bearing witness? How do we observe, record, and interpret events from the everyday to the unspeakable? In this nonfiction workshop, we’ll explore a continuum of creative nonfiction including literary journalism, essay, and memoir. We’ll write from our own observations of cultural life, exploring ethical issues as well as style, voice, and literary form.

This course is part of the Documentary Studies Certificate Program.

Dates: Saturday-Sunday, August 4-5, 2012

Times: 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Location: Lewis & Clark Graduate Campus, Rogers 219

Instructor: Joanne Mulcahy, Ph.D.

Degree-applicable credit: WCM504, 1 semester hour, $773

Continuing education credit: CELA 804 1 semester hour, $350

Noncredit/CEU: 15 hours, $250

About the Instructor

Joanne B. Mulcahy teaches creative nonfiction, ethnographic writing and humanities CORE classes at the NW Writing Institute. Her academic credentials include degrees in Comparative Literature, Folklore and Folklife, and Cultural Anthropology. Mulcahy has taught workshops that combine creative nonfiction and ethnographic writing for the Association of Western States Folklorists, the New York Folklore Society, and the American Folklore Society. For over a decade, she taught courses in anthropology and gender studies in Lewis and Clark’s College of Arts and Sciences.

In addition, she has facilitated workshops in numerous other settings, including The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the Hudson Valley Writer’s Center, Oregon public libraries, The Verbal Arts Centre in Derry, N. Ireland, and Alaska and Oregon Corrections facilities. She is an Associate of the Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking and adjunct faculty for the Ph.D. program of The Union Institute.

Mulcahy’s essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her awards include fellowships from The Oregon Institute of Literary Arts, the New Letters nonfiction prize, and grants from The British Council, the Alaska Humanities Forum, and the Oregon Council for the Humanities.

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