In this informal lecture, we’ll explore notions of “Immersion writing,” from immersion journalism, to travel writing and what I call “immersion memoir” (though some dub it “Schtick Lit!”). Certainly, immersion writing can be gimmicky and superficial, just as humor can be superficial or profound. But the best immersion writing uses the writer as a stand-in, or a conduit for the larger culture’s anxieties and foibles. In Immersion Journalism, the writer uses herself as a way to write about the world. In Immersion memoir, the writer uses the world to write about himself. And in Travel writing, it’s a bit of both: the writer in the world and the world in the writer. In this lecture, I’ll make a case for James Agee as an Immersion Memoirist as well as Hunter S. Thompson and we’ll also explore the writings of some of the earliest Immersion journalists such as Nellie Bly who in the 1880’s had herself committed to an asylum and later took up Jules Verne’s fictional challenge and traveled around the world in fewer than 80 days. Every book needs an organizing principle, and what might seem gimmicky in the hands of one writer can be rendered profound by another. It’s all in the execution. Finally, you’ll have the opportunity to brainstorm some immersion ideas on your own.