Charles Olson’s Curriculum: Poetry, Pedagogy, and Teaching the Liberal Arts

Author

• Onur A. Ayaz, CUNY Graduate CenterFollow

Date of Degree

6-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

English

Advisor

Ammiel Alcalay

Committee Members

Wayne Koestenbaum

Karen Miller

Subject Categories

American Literature | American Material Culture | Higher Education and Teaching | Poetry | Rhetoric and Composition

Keywords

Poetics, Paul Metcalf, New American Poetry, Charles Olson, Black Mountain College, Writing Studies

Abstract

This dissertation integrates poetics, pedagogy, writing, and American higher education history in the study of poet Charles Olson. This dissertation provides, in effect, an overview of Olson’s life, his writing, his correspondence, his influence on students, and the impacts of his teaching across several traditional and non-traditional settings through an intense pedagogic focus. In recent years communities and institutions, such as CUNY Lost and Found and the Gloucester Writer’s Center, have fostered and preserved professional writing and public programming stemming around Olson, his peers, and the wider community of artists and writers that emerged during the Cold War. These public humanities-driven efforts sustain and foster interest in the liberal arts. This dissertation bridges these efforts to the English curriculum in order to explore, sustain and preserve the liberal arts in the wider American context. I argue that the re-introduction of authors, their primary source materials, their mixed manuscript materials and letters, and emerging conversations with other texts, are all critical to the success of the undergraduate education curriculum in the 21st century. In fact, this dissertation works through an intersection of poetics and pedagogy—thinking through the several methods I have developed as a teacher to evoke a high level of critical thinking in students, while fostering a highly engaging teaching practice. Olson, in my case, has been an important thought-partner in this self-reflection and research. Thus, in this project I develop a critical-historical framework that follows Olson’s literary and pedagogic activities alongside the development of American higher education from 1930 to 1970. The pedagogical insights I draw through this project allow me to recognize the value in place-based learning, fostering community, and an intense focus on reading within the humanities.

Recommended Citation

Ayaz, Onur A., "Charles Olson’s Curriculum: Poetry, Pedagogy, and Teaching the Liberal Arts" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6617