After the Program Era: The Past, Present, and Future of Creative Writing in the University

by Loren Glass (Editor)

The publication in 2009 of Mark McGurl’s The Program Era provoked a sea change in the study of postwar literature. Even though almost every English department in the United States housed some version of a creative writing program by the time of its publication, literary scholars had not previously considered that this institutional phenomenon was historically significant. McGurl’s groundbreaking book effectively established that “the rise of the creative writing program stands as the most important event in postwar American literary history,” forcing us to revise our understanding not only of the relationship between higher education and literary production, but also of the periodizing terminology we had previously used to structure our understanding of twentieth-century literature.

After the Program Era explores the consequences and implications, as well as the lacunae and liabilities, of McGurl’s foundational intervention. Glass focuses only on American fiction and the traditional MFA program, and this collection aims to expand and examine its insights in terms of other genres and sites. Postwar poetry, in particular, has until now been neglected as a product of the Program Era, even though it is, arguably, a “purer” example, since poets now depend almost entirely on the patronage of the university. Similarly, this collection looks beyond the traditional MFA writing program to explore the pre-history of writing programs in American universities, as well as alternatives to the traditionally structured program that have emerged along the way.

Taken together, the essays in After the Program Era seek to answer and explore many of these questions and continue the conversations McGurl only began.

CONTRIBUTORS
Seth Abramson, Greg Barnhisel, Eric Bennett, Matthew Blackwell, Kelly Budruweit, Mike Chasar, Simon During , Donal Harris, Michael Hill, Benjamin Kirbach, Sean McCann, Mark McGurl, Marija Rieff, Juliana Spahr, Stephen Voyce, Stephanie Young
 

280 pages, Paperback

Published January 4, 2017

Reviews

[Steve Llano · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great collection of different perspectives on the future of teaching creative writing in Universities. Each chapter takes on a concern, an issue, a critique, or a gap that is recognized now in writing instruction. I assume this is for BFA and MFA programs mostly, but as someone who doesn't teach writing as the primary task of a class (although I do assign writing so I teach it in that sense) I found a lot of the questions and discussion really interesting and applicable to many of the concerns I have about writing and teaching.

I found the book to be very insightful and well-written. The "Program Era" is defined by many of the writers to hold true to three principles: Write what you know, show don't tell, and find your voice. They argue that these three principles have shaped a lot of the literary fiction or literary writing of the modern era. What happens next? What's the next place we can go to interrogate writing instruction? The critiques of the whiteness and the limitations of what sort of creativity that can come out of this approach are all over the book. I personally liked the chapter on Black Mountain College the best.

This book won't appeal to everyone, it's targeted toward those who are teaching at MFA literature programs I'd guess. But I do like the meta-conversation about writing - what it is, how to do it, and how to teach it. So I'd suggest this book if you too are really interested in thinking about those issues as well.

["Jonathan Compo" · Rating 5 out of 5]

The essay in here by Julianna Spahr is so friggin crunchy, really out of everything I've read about writing workshops, her essay was the most valuable.

[Mills College Library]

808.00711 A2589 2016