Mark Tursi
Mark Tursi
Title
Adjunct Instructor of Academic Writing
About
Mark Tursi is the author of four books of poetry: Brutal Synecdoche, The Impossible Picnic, Shiftless Days, and forthcoming in early 2019, The Uncanny Valley. He is one of the founding editors of Apostrophe Books, an innovative press devoted to publishing poetry that intersects philosophy and cultural theory, as well as Double Room, an online literary and visual arts journal. In addition to teaching academic writing at Marymount, he teaches literature and creative writing at New Jersey City University and is a frequent lecturer of the Museum of Modern Art in New York where he teaches courses that courses explore the intersection of literature and visual art. He received his PhD from the University of Denver and an MFA from Colorado State University.
Degrees
BA in English and Philosophy, Potsdam, College
MFA in Creative Writing, Colorado State University
PhD in English, University of Denver
Teaching
One of the best things about teaching writing in the Academic Writing Program is its versatility. “Nearly every discipline and field of study requires an ability to think critically and to write well. This means that the possibilities for choosing a theme or topic for the various courses in this program—the content, subject, and material to actually write about—are virtually limitless. Since I’ve been at Marymount I’ve taught courses with themes like Monsters & Madness, Theories & Philosophies of Happiness, and the Kafkaesque: Cosmic Irony & the Sinister Surreal. Fun stuff! And, coming soon in Spring 2019, the theme I’ve chosen for my WRIT 102 course is called “Cultural Collisions: A Literary Yin-Yang of East & West.” In this course, students will examine the cross-cultural conflicts, collaborations, and interchanges between America and East Asian countries like China, Japan, Tibet, and Mongolia. And, of course, having Manhattan as our campus and ‘intellectual playground’ makes the ideas explored in the literature and texts seem, somehow, more real and immediate.”