Research Seminar for Literature Majors (397-0-20)

Topic

Text and Image, Image in Text

Instructors

Rebecca Johnson
847/467-1365
University Hall 225

Meeting Info

University Hall 318: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

We live in an increasingly image-driven world, as cultural critics have noted, yet authors have long experimented with images in their work, often testing or blurring the border between text and image. This course explores the diverse, complex, and sometimes tense relations between modern literature and the visual arts, working through literary representations of art works, experiments in visual poetry, artists' books and zines, and text-based visual art. In asking us to see literature and read images, how do these works create new and sometimes radical opportunities for making meaning, building community, and imagining futures? This course will make hands-on use of collections in the Block Museum and the Deering Art Library, and over the course of the quarter you will learn how to identify archival materials, develop a robust research question, and craft a sustained argument with primary and secondary source evidence. Skill-building exercises will culminate in a final research essay of 12-15 pages that investigates any literary or artistic work from the university's collections.

Teaching Method

Seminar discussions, hands-on workshops, classes in Special Collections and the Block Museum.

Evaluation Method

Research exercises, peer review, final research essay.

Class Materials (Required)

May include works by Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, Guillaume Apollinaire, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Etel Adnan, Jenny Holzer, Emily Jacir.

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Department Majors/Minors Only

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Pre-registration -- Reserved for English and Creative Writing students. Department Majors and Minors Only. No Freshmen/First Years