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Valerie Hsiung

Core Associate Professor; Chair, Creative Writing Programs

Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics

valerie.hsiung@naropa.edu

ACADEMIC PROGRAMS:

BA Creative Writing & Literature, MFA Creative Writing (Low-Residency), MFA Creative Writing & Poetics

COURSES TAUGHT:

MFA Writers in Community / MFA Women Writers / Open Texts / Critical Thesis / MFA Multigenre Workshop: Text/Image / UG Workshop: Narrative Forms / MFA Experimental Prose / MFA Somatic Writing / MFA Cross Genre / UG Seminar: Diaspora, Migration, Borderlands / UG Workshop: Innovative Poetry / MFA Creative Thesis

Valerie Hsiung writes between worlds, where language meets ritual and abolition meets afterlife. Her books dissolve the borders of poetry, prose, and philosophy into a single listening body, drawing on diasporic, ecological, and metaphysical inquiry. She is the author of eight full-length books, including The pedestrian (Nightboat Books, forthcoming), The Naif (Ugly Duckling Presse), The only name we can call it now is not its only name (Counterpath), To love an artist (Essay Press), and outside voices, please (CSU). Her writing has appeared in Annulet, BathHouse Journal, The Georgia Review, mercury firs, The Nation, Paperbag, Verse and her work has been presented internationally at Double Change (Paris), Hyle (Athens), and the Jaipur Literature Festival. Recipient of support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, PEN America, and Lighthouse Works, she teaches writing at the limits of language at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.

PUBLICATIONS:

YOU ARE READY.

This is where experiential learning meets academic rigor. Where you challenge your intellect and uncover your potential. Where you discover the work you’re moved to do—then use it to transform our world.

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Located in Boulder, Colorado, Naropa University is a Buddhist-inspired, nonsectarian liberal arts university that is recognized as the birthplace of the mindfulness movement. Naropa offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs that emphasize professional and personal growth, intellectual development, and cultivating compassion. 

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Contemplative education brings together the best of Western scholarship and Eastern world wisdom traditions. Therefore, your pursuit of wisdom at Naropa means learning both about academic subjects and about your own place in the world. This innovative approach places Naropa on the cutting edge of the newest and most effective methods of teaching and learning.  

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Through its incredibly vibrant and welcoming community,  “Naropa offers a home for those who aren’t willing to conform to convention—the mystic, the healer, the prophet, the rebel, the artist, the revolutionary, the oddball—those who are incredible contributors to the evolution of society and of our planet.”—Core Associate Professor Zvi Ish-Shalom

The Naropa Difference

How is Naropa different from other universities? At Naropa, a liberal arts education balances rigorous academics with powerful interpersonal skills and self-awareness to educate the whole person. Naropa’s contemplative approach is inspired by Buddhist philosophy and the conviction that we can build a diverse, contemplative, enlightened society when we have transformed education to affirm the basic goodness of every person. 

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