Class Portrait
Text as a Medium is a writing course designed to give students experience with words as an artistic medium. A lecture/workshop format is used to explore techniques for using words as a vehicle for ideas both on the page and in the context of other mediums. That is, while the emphasis is on writing, the class will also examine the ways in which a text can be combined with other elements to create meaning: how texts are like other signs such as images, how they are unlike other signs, what text can do better than other mediums, how the literary text differs from everyday speech or writing, how literary meaning is created through a combination of form and content and how it can be effectively combined with other mediums. That is, though the focus will be on writing, the approach is interdisciplinary; students will be encouraged to transgress boundaries that traditionally exist between disciplines, genres and mediums as we explore the creation of narrative and non-narrative forms of written expression.

Texts
Candace Schaefer and Rick Diamond, The Creative Writing Guide to Poetry, Literary Nonficion, Fiction and Drama.
Course Packet

Assignments
Students will be asked to write four minor works and one major one. The minor works will include: a dramatic sketch/performance collage; a short story; a group of poems; and a graphic and/or hyper story or poem. The major work can be done within any of these genres. Students should submit enough copies of their work so that every other student in the class can have one for discussion. Additional work will include: a detailed critique of each piece submitted for discussion, reading assignments, attendance at readings/performances (to be announced), trips to the Newberry Library and the Flasch Artists’ Books Collection and a number of exercises announced on a class-to-class basis.

Class Attendance
Much of the value of this course is derived from class discussion. Therefore, students are expected to attend class regularly. Documented illness and extreme emergencies are the sole acceptable reasons for missing class. All assignments will be collected on the dates they are due whether you were in class to receive the assignment or not. This means that if you are absent, it is your responsibility to find out what you missed. If you are absent more than 2 classes, the grade on your final assignment (and if necessary, other assignments) will be lowered 1 grade for each additional class missed.

Grades
Your final grade will be based mainly upon the quality of the work you submit. However, when calculating your final grade I will also take into consideration your critiques of other student work, class participation, effort, and in-class assignments. Work turned in late for discussion will not be accepted unless arrangements are made. All other work turned in late will be lowered one grade for each day it is late. Loosely defined, I interpret letter grades as follows: A = Exemplary; distinctly above very-good work: a maturity of ideas and craft. B = Very Good; what can be expected from contentious students at this level. C = Competent writing that shows signs of a conscious attempt to make serious, crafted work even though it also exhibits some problems. In general, I will critique work turned in for class, return it, then grade it after it has been rewritten.

Course Intro

Literary Art & Literary Kitsch
Readings: Gillo Dorfles, Selections from Kitsch. Plot summary and Script excerpt from Gilligan’s Island. Excerpt from Laurie Anderson, United States Part II (text and image).

Anne Rice, Selection from Vampire Chronicles. Mary Shelly, Selection from Frankenstein.

Erich Segal, Selection from Love Story. Ernest Hemingway, Selection from Farewell to Arms.

Various Heritage Plates from the Franklin Mint. Various Selections from Gardner’s Art Through the Ages. Your Prejudice Is My Taste: Thoughts on Cultural Education/Indoctrination and the Problematic Differences of the Hoipolloi and the Hoity-toity. Dave Hickey, "Godiva Speaks." Selections from artist statements and catalogs.

Significant Detail and Making Meaning
Readings: Be a Part of It (Canadian Club ad). Signature montage from The Simpsons (in-class video). Craig Baldwin, Excerpt from Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies under America. Excerpt from Laurie Anderson, United States Part II (text and image). Laurie Anderson, Puppet Motel (on CD-ROM). Bobby Ann Mason, "Shiloh." Melanesian Bungee Fertility Rite (in-class video). Chris Marker, Le Jette (in class video). Selections from Jenny Holtzer. Selections from Leslie Dill. Boccaccio, Decameron, "Fourth Day, Ninth Story." Gordon Jackson, "Billy’s Girl." Familiarity and Strangeness in Text Readings: Selections from Emily Dickinson. Selections from Duchamp. Rikki Ducornet, "Rosevine." Selections from Ben Marcus, Age of Wire and String. Selections from Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams. Selections from John Ashbury. Jorge Luis Borges, "The Aleph."

Text Collage Workshop

Story Form
Readings: Chap. 10 in textbook. Tim O’Brien, "The Things They Carried." Bobby Ann Mason, "Shiloh." Robert Coover, "The Babysitter." Vollman, William, "Red Hands."

Elements of Narrative Theme. Plot. Character. Setting.
Readings: Chap. 9 in textbook. Susan Daitch, "Storytown." Rikki Ducornet, "Rosevine" and "The Chess Set of Ivory." "Inhaling the Spore" from Lawrence Weschler’s Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder.

Writing a Short Story Beginnings/Endings. Two and Three-Dimensional Language Structure.
Readings: Selections from Aesop. Boccaccio, Decameron, "Fourth Day, Ninth Story." Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl." Alex Shakar, "Maximum Carnage." Michael Carroll, "The Information Age."

Narrative Prose Workshop

Narrative Poetry Definition. Poetic Forms.
Readings: Textbook Chap. 4 & 7. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Excelsior." Charles Bukowski, "Looking for a Job." Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken." Selections from United States of Poetry CD: Ruth Forman, "Stoplight Politics"; Amiri Baraka, "The X is Black (Spike Lie)"; Allen Ginsberg, "Personals Ad." Public Enemy, "Can’t Truss It."

Poetry (cont.)
Words are Fossils (Etymology, Denotation, Connotation, Association, Evocation) Words are Sounds (Alliteration, Assonance, Rhyme, Meter) Reading: Chap. 5 & 6 in textbook. Selections from Charles Bernstein, Lyn Hejinian, Ann Lauterbach, Nathaniel Mackey, Robert .Creeley.

Poetry Workshop

Representation and Conceptual Art
Readings: Homer, Selection from The Iliad. Visual Aid: Laocoön. Boccaccio, Decameron, "Fourth Day, Ninth Story." Visual Aid: Illustration from Illuminated Manuscript Page. Shakespeare, Selection from Othello. Visual Aid: Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam. Abbé Prévost, Selection from Manon Lescaut. William Wordsworth, "The World Is Too Much with Us." Visual Aid: William Blake, Pity. Frank Norris, Selection from McTeague. Visual Aid: Courbet, The Meeting or Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet. Virginia Woolf, Selection from To the Lighthouse. Visual Aid: Pablo Picasso, Accordionist. Jay Cantor, Selection from Krazy Kat. Visual Aid: Peter Blake, The Meeting or Have a Nice Day, Mr. Hockney. Embodied Forms of Narrative Graphic Stories. Hypertext. Readings: Selections from Joan Flash Artists’ Books Collection. Selections from Center for Book and Paper Arts. Illuminated Manuscripts from the Newberry Library. Selections from RAW. Shelly Jackson, Selection from Patchwork Girl (a hypertext novel on reserve). Selections from Michael Joyce, afternoon, a story, Deena Larsen, Marble Spring and Stuart Moulthrop, Victory Garden can be found on-line at www.eastgate.com. Also see the on-line journal Alt-X atwww.altx.com. Also on reserve for reference: Ben Katchor, Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer; Art Spiegelman, Maus (CD-ROM version). Opera: Mozart’s Don Giovani, Royal Shakespeare Company production and Peter Sellers Production. Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest and Peter Greenway’s Prospero’s Books. Digitas: The New York Review of Art and Literature (on CD-ROM). Selections from WJT Mitchell’s Picture Theory. Michael Joyce, Twilight (on CD-ROM).

Embodied Narrative Workshop