Writer's Workshop: Expatriate Writing in Paris

  France

• Paris: 
Paris

Term: Fall 
Dates: Call CEA or visit our website

Description: This is a practical workshop in reading and creative writing in which you explore both the external life of Paris, past and present, and your many internal responses to it in order to develop your own voice, style and technique as a writer living in this City of Light. You will draw the inspiration for this creative exploration from what writers before you have recounted about the experience of discovering, living in, and struggling with the exhilarating yet maddening and often cruel city that is Paris. And while you will read from well-known American writers such as Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, and James Baldwin (to mention a few), you will also discover the surprising literary work of Eastern European, African, and West-Indian expatriates who also wrote about experiencing Paris. What is it about Paris that continues to give writers, artists, and thinkers from abroad the freedom and stimulation to produce work that has often transformed the cultural scene in their native land? How, for example, did writing in a Paris café enable Hemingway to recreate his youthful experiences in upper Michigan? In what way did the experiments of early 20th century painting in Paris contribute to Gertrude Steins revolutionizing American literature. What does the concept of Négritude and its African and West Indian exponents Léopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire? not to mention such American admirers as Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Chester Himes owe to the intellectual crucible of Paris. These are just some of the issues that you will be investigating as a group.

Highlights: Throughout the course, you will keep a writer's journal where you record your impressions, observations and perhaps chaotic emotive responses to the urban environment of your expatriate foster home. You will report back to the rest of the class about your forays and will choose passages from your Paris journal to expand into regular written assignments. And while you will produce a collection of your own essays, poems and short stories all inspired by Paris, you will also collaborate with your fellow students in the conception, writing, editing, and printing of the classes written work.

Degree Level: Bachelors Degree (Undergraduate)

Cost in US$: Call CEA or visit our website for current prices

Experience Required: no

This Program is open to American and European Participants.

Participants Travel to France Independently or in Groups

Typically Participants Work Independently or in Groups

Scholarships are Available. Multiple scholarship opportunities are available. Visit our financing section for more information.

Application Process Involves:

• Transcript
• Written Application

Post-Program Services Include:

• Alumni Network
• Exit Debriefing Abroad
• Job and Internship Network

CEA - Cultural Experiences Abroad's Mission Statement: CEA's Mission is to create and facilitate opportunities for personal growth and global understanding through quality international education and cultural experiences.

Year Founded: 1996