CLASS FORMAT FAQ

Where’s the course syllabus? Where's the weekly course breakdown?

There is no formal university-style reading list or syllabus. The institution of university has the power to regulate the lifestyles of its constituent students and as a result can dictate course content based on a preconceived system of intellectual stratification. At the AFU, our mandate is to create new learning opportunities for those who are marginalized by the expense and inflexible structure of the university system. We do our best to welcome students from as wide a range of intellectual, economic and cultural backgrounds as possible. That makes it difficult to enforce a completely uniform course outline especially if people need to support themselves with full-time jobs, don’t speak English as their first language, etc.

Then, how do we know what to read?

It is very true that the collective study of literature is vastly enhanced if all the students have been exposed to the some of the same written material. Over the course of my tenure at the AFU, I have tried to create a system that is at once flexible and suited to a wide range of needs, yet focused enough to have everyone on the same page for fruitful classroom discussions. By making the subject matter as specific as possible, I try to allow for a certain range of literary exploration—which I enthusiastically encourage—while maintaining topicality. What I offer is a choice of appropriate material for people to study in accordance with their interests and time constraints. On the first day of class, we will select at least one book from the list by consensus that we can all agree to read as a community. In my experience, a class of about ten can get through at least two novels in ten weeks. I also enjoy the practice of reading shorter works out loud in class. I’ve found that it’s very powerful to experience a work of fiction in the company of others and the subsequent discussion greatly benefits from the intimacy and immediacy.

What economic benefit will I gain from taking this course?

Because I have not been invested with the institutional authority to grant diplomas, certificates, or even references that hold weight, I cannot guarantee any degree of career success as a result of having taken one of my courses. However, it is my opinion that, especially in the case of the humanities, the idea that any orthodox university institution can is highly questionable these days. What I can guarantee is that you will incur very little expense and absolutely no debt. I can also guarantee that you will be introduced to others with coinciding interests but diverse backgrounds. The economic reasoning behind offering literature courses for free is that, in the wake of exponentially increasing personal debt coupled with exponentially decreasing career stability, a new generation of fulfilling employment will have to be seeded from the ground up. New standards of value and worth will have to be incubated and experimented with while new relationships of creativity and economy are forged within alternate communities. The underlying momentum of this course lies with the belief that this can be accomplished in part by encouraging personal freedom through extra-institutional (non-book market, non-university) writing practices.

What are your credentials as an educator?

I have no formal credentials as an educator. By offering a literature course, I am making no claim to have the monopoly of expertise on the subject at hand nor even to be particularly well-exposed to it. What I am doing is making a commitment to do a large amount of research over the course of the class and to report back on it as clearly and as faithfully as I can. I encourage students to do the same.

Part of the ‘anarchist’ mandate of the class structure is to devolve intellectual power and authority onto the community. I often introduce texts to the class that I have had no previous experience with and try to be as receptive as possible to the accumulated knowledge and gifts of the students. My struggle is to create a space to study writing directly—make it the sole ‘authority’—while dissolving as much as possible any ‘expert’ mediation between the individual reader and writer. It is my belief that this form of mediation—the rule in orthodox institutions of education—is not neutral, but severely dampens and regulates the organic process of bonding that otherwise takes place between the reader and writer of a book. The interpretive process becomes dry, overly-intellectual and generalized, while blocking out personal, emotional and spiritual literary effects. This course is designed to be a counter to that.

What about exams/homework?

Existing entirely outside of the moneyed economy, the AFU has absolutely no economic reins to hold, whips to crack nor any other means of holding careers hostage in order to enforce intellectual labour. That being the case, it has been very challenging to extract any body of work from AFU classes. However, I am offering these classes with the intent to gestate new creative communities of writers and artists who are interested in sharing their work and being motivated by others to express themselves freely. I can only promise that any work I receive from a member of the class will be carefully read, have the creative impulse behind it respected and be followed up by a detailed and considered response. Freed from the economic instrumentalism of grading, I believe that the writing of essays and creative responses can become a much more fruitful and enlightening practice. Grading reinforces the dimensions of success and failure which are already alien and inimical to the creative process. Rather than preventing errors or gaps in understanding which are vital to creative growth, it encourages their denial and concealment. So instead of adding to an already bulging canon of regulated theoretical commentary and analysis, we now have the opportunity to build our own practices and standards and to inspire what I believe is the most appropriate response to any creative work: the creation of new ones.

What should I expect from a typical class?

Whatever you bring to it. I try to bring as much variety as I can to the class with presentations, videos, slide-shows, in-class readings, etc., and the whole idea is to encourage you to eventually prepare your own. The settings are very informal and a potluck or byob vibe is always welcome.