Jack Kerouac School
Founded in 1974 by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, as part of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s 100-year experiment, Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics consists of the undergraduate Core Writing Seminars, a BA in Creative Writing and Literature, a residential MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics, an MFA in Creative Writing, and the Summer Writing Program. The Kerouac School, located in Boulder, Colorado, United States, honors its historical roots while bringing forward new questions that both invigorate and challenge the current dialogue in writing today.
Curriculum
The Jack Kerouac School offers an open genre curriculum, and students are encouraged to take classes across genres, enabling them to investigate a personal, intensely original writing process and style. This challenges the notion of safe or generic works and creates a space for radical exploration and experimentation. The program problematizes genre while cultivating contemplative and experimental writing practices and emphasizes innovative approaches to literary arts.
Sam Kashner wrote an account of his time as the first student of the school in When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School (2004).[1]
Summer Writing program
Each year, the Jack Kerouac School invites over sixty guest faculty to its internationally renowned Summer Writing Program, a four-week colloquium of workshops, lectures, and readings. This distinguishing feature fosters an intensely creative environment for students to develop their writing projects in conversation with a community of writers.
Funding
In the fall of 2014, the Jack Kerouac School announced three fully funded fellowships: the Anne Waldman, Allen Ginsberg, and Anselm Hollo Graduate Fellowships, awarded annually to three incoming MFA Creative Writing and Poetics students. These recipients receive full funding (tuition and fees) and an $8,000 stipend as well as a Graduate Instructor position.
External links
- Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics on Naropa University site
- Official Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Blog
- Naropa Poetics Audio Archives at Archive.org
- Anne Waldman, Marilyn Webb, (Eds) Talking poetics from Naropa Institute: annals of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Volume 1, Taylor & Francis, 1979, ISBN 978-0-394-73569-6
- Anne Waldman, Marilyn Webb, (Eds) Talking poetics from Naropa Institute: annals of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Volume 2, Taylor & Francis, 1979, ISBN 978-0-394-73691-4
References
- ↑
- Kashner, Sam. When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School. HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN 0-06-000566-1.