This class will explore the complexity of "witnessing"-recounting what one sees in a way that insists on the truth and, possibly, the urgency and corrective power of one's vision. Our readings will be eclectic, and may include: TV news; documentary films; eighteenth-century travel narratives; poems by Dante, William Blake, and Carolyn Forsche; religious visions and prophecies; fiction by John Bunyan and Toni Morrison; memoirs by Elizabeth Prince and Eli Wiesel. Toward the end of the semester, we will focus on two historical events-the slave trade and the Holocaust-reading a variety of documentary and fictional accounts. Our discussions will examine how, and to what ends, our texts both claim the authority of the "eye-witness account" and challenge assumptions about what we can "see" and know. Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: twenty pages of writing in the form of frequent informal responses to the readings and 4 formal essays, each of which will involve a revision. For two of these essays, students will work in pairs in a tutorial session. Prerequisite: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference to first and second-year students and majors who have yet to take a Gateway course. This course is writing intensive. (1700-1900 or Post-1900)