In this seminar we will explore the notebook, journal, and diary as “genre adverse” forms of writing that involve processes of building up and breaking down, allowing for a range of profoundly ambivalent attitudes towards language, thought, and the relation between self and world. Readings may include authors such as Artaud, Dazai, Hedayat, Kafka, Kierkegaard, Leopardi, Nerval, Nietzsche, Pessoa, Pizarnik, Wittgenstein, and Woolf, as well as considerations of the ‘sickroom journal’, the dream journal, and the Japanese poetic diary.