Say nice things about Detroit: Reading the US Rust Belt

By and large, the US Rust Belt – the region ranging from the Northeast to the Midwest of the country, where heavy manufacturing once strongly shaped the economy – nowadays tends to be associated with urban and industrial decline rather than with the realization of the American Dream. At the same time, however, and despite the challenge of shrinking cities and economic hardship, there has been much literary output from the Rust Belt, especially in recent years; a development facilitated by the emergence of smaller presses across the region: Due to the work of Belt Publishing or Rust Belt Press, cities from Buffalo to Akron to Detroit now have their own poetry anthologies and their own short story collections, for example, forging a strong local identity and regional pride by telling stories decidedly different from the “urban autopsy” genre previously associated with Detroit.

In this class, we will explore some of this contemporary Rust Belt writing. We will look at the legacy of the industrial past via the exploration of different textual genres emerging from the Rust Belt, but also at the ways literature and writing can open new ways of building a (post-industrial) future.

In the second half of the class, students will get the opportunity to relate our findings to the Ruhr Region by conducting their own creative exploration in front of our doors.

Please purchase the (Young Adult) novel One for Sorrow (2014) by Christopher Barzak.

A reader with additional material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.