The Burlington Writers Workshop offers nearly 300 free workshops each year in Burlington, Montpelier, and Middlebury, as well as master classes and various full-day writing retreats throughout Vermont. Most of our current workshops meet Online, but we do have in-person workshops. We ask that you attend at least one workshop before requesting to submit your own work for review.
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BWW Lit Group – Alfred Doblin “Berlin Alexanderplatz”
February 22 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Free
“Berlin Alexanderplatz” was published in Germany in 1929 and is considered by many to be one of the crowning achievements of the Weimar Republic. While this novel certainly contains plenty of plot, some of its more innovative qualities center around narrative form and structure. Often compared to James Joyce’s “Ulysses”, it owes a greater debt to the technique of montage in expressionist film from the 1910s and 20s. In a word, this is experimental writing that is thoroughly enjoyable to read.
A weekly breakdown and schedule for “Berlin Alexanderplatz” (page numbers from the NYRB edition):
February 8: Pages 1 through 76
February 15: Pages 77 through 152
February 22: Pages 153 through 226
March 1: Pages 227 through 299
March 8: Pages 299 through 372
March 15: Pages 372 through 443
Same breakdown by section (for ebook readers):
February 8: Beginning through “The Neue Welt, in Hasenheide”
February 15: “Franz is a man of some scale” through End of Chapter 4
February 22: Chapter 5 through “Get up, you feeble spirit”
March 1: “Third Conquest of Berlin” through “The Duel begins!”
March 8: “Franz breaking and entering” through “And behold the tears”
March 15: “Then I praised the dead” through End