Eric Hayot - Structure and Style in Humanities Writing

Lecture Overview:

In this workshop, I will explain why I wrote The Elements of Academic Style (2014) and talk about some of the things I learned since 2014. Then we’ll do two exercises. The first will involve practicing the Uneven U by rebuilding a paragraph from an existing academic book. The second will involve introductions: we will look at a sampling of introductions to pieces of published writing done by people with PhDs in the humanities. We’ll use them to think through some of the differences between writing for public-facing venues and writing scholarship, and to open onto bigger questions about writing. Participants should read in advance the sections on the Uneven U in The Elements of Academic Style and the samples of public-facing introductions (available in the English office).

Eric Hayot is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies at Penn State University. He’s the author of five books, including On Literary Worlds (2012), The Elements of Academic Style (2014), and Humanist Reason (2021), and co-editor of three volumes, including, most recently, Information: A Reader (with Anatoly Detwyler and Lea Pao). He is the translator, with Lea Pao, of Peter Janich’s What is Information?