Chambana Sun

Some required readings in a University of Illinois (U of I) course on fiction writing have sexually explicit scenes, the Chambana Sun has learned.

The syllabus for “Introduction to Narrative Writing” taught by graduate student Amelia Jane Hawkins lists three short stories that all begin with sexually graphic or suggestive scenes. “Girls, At Play” by Celeste Ng (author of the novel Everything I Never Told You) starts: “This is how we play the game: pink means kissing; red means tongue. Green means up your shirt; blue means down his pants. Purple means in your mouth. Black means all the way.”

The story was published in 2010 in the Bellevue Literary Review.

Classroom

Other required readings include “God” by Benjamin Nugent, published in the Paris Review in 2013, and “An Honest Woman” by Ottessa Moshfegh, published in The New Yorker in 2016.

When asked about the appropriateness of the writing for a course on fiction, Hawkins responded in an email to the Sun that “‘Girls, At Play’ is about the traumas of girlhood. Her (Ng's) story utilizes a first person plural point of view and I find it to be an excellent means of teaching focalization.” (Focalization, according to Oxford Reference, is “the term used in modern narratology for ‘point of view’; that is, for the kind of perspective from which the events of a story are witnessed.”)

Hawkins did not respond to questions about why the other stories were chosen.  

In the course’s syllabus, under “Classroom Etiquette,” Hawkins writes: “Inevitably, you won’t love (or even like) every story you read this semester, and that’s okay! But you’re not allowed to say I don’t like this—or even I like this. Thinking in these terms is too simple for what we’re trying to accomplish here, and we’re not just readers in this class. If you’re responding to a story in a particular way, ask yourself why. Always and constantly—why, why, why. Get to the root of what the writing is evoking in you as a writer and think about whether that move is a tool you want to try out.”

Vicki Mahaffey, head of the English department at the university, did not respond to an email request for comment. Mahaffey is listed on the University’s website as specializing in gender/sexuality studies, Irish studies, modern British literature, theory and criticism, and women's literature.

The course runs until May 1.

The university has run afoul of standards of decency—at least standards held by some—before. In 2013, a university residence hall brought in a former porn star as an instructor in a week-long sex education seminar, reported NBC 5 Chicago.

“The program, which began Feb. 3, featured former porn star Annie Sprinkle and ended Thursday with an ‘orgasm workshop,’" the report said.