First Book is designed for early-career academics across the social sciences and humanities who are working toward tenure and want to write the book they dream of writing – one that is unique, theoretically-lively, and beautifully-written. If you hope to write a first book that could win scholarly book prizes, this class is for you.
Class Purpose
Turning a dissertation into a first book is not simply a matter of revision – it’s a reimagining. This class will newly electrify your relationship to the questions and concepts at the heart of your dissertation as you rebuild them into a completely new form. You’ll learn to hold two commitments at once: writing a book that satisfies the demands of tenure, and writing the book you actually want to write.
What you will learn
Over four weeks, we will work together to strengthen:
- Voice – how to develop a clear, vital, and unique voice as a scholar, allowing you to make bold and original interventions on the page
- Citation – how to renegotiate your relationship to the scholarly apparatus you rely on, centering your own intellectual trajectory and contributions, while situating them within larger genealogies
- Scene and theory – how to embody your arguments through scene, in conversation with theory
- Structural through-lines – how to map out the threads of concept, narrative, image, and description across the arc of the book
- Balance – how to hold all of the above in tension with scholarly representational forms and methods
How it will be taught
We will study excerpts from acclaimed first books by authors including Lisa Stevenson, Angela Garcia, Munira Khayyat, Fatima Mojaddedi, and others, examining closely how they solved the same problems you’re facing.
The class combines three modes of learning each week:
- Craft lessons – close study of published first books and the choices behind them
- Writing exercises – hands-on practice applying craft techniques to your own material
- Feedback – you will receive written feedback on two writing assignments and one elective hour-long coaching session at the end of the course to discuss possibilities and opportunities for the book manuscript going forward
What you will get
You will leave the course with a draft of your book’s prologue and a revised Table of Contents, having re-envisioned your book’s arc and structure. In addition, you will take with you strategies to implement for the rest of the manuscript, including a clarified sense of theoretical and narrative threads, potential scenes to be written, and a clear sense of the voice that will carry you through the project