Part 1: Word-Art Foundations
Monday, January 11 (Week 1)
- Introduction to the syllabus, website, key concepts and practices
- Bring a composition notebook and pencil to class
- Lynda Barry, Syllabus
Wednesday, January 13
- What is a Davidson Domain?
- Domains Training
- Davidson Domains handout (pdf)
- “About me” post due (150 words + 1 image max)
- start reading Lynda Barry, Syllabus
Friday, January 15
- Lynda Barry, Syllabus
- Iain McGilchrist, “The Divided Brain” (video, 12 mins)
- Recommended: McGilchrist “Introduction” to The Master and his Emissary (online pdf)
- Bring your composition book to class
Monday, January 18
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Day – no class meeting
- Complete one exercise from Barry’s Syllabus in your composition book
- Comments on About Me posts due (minimum 5, distribute equally)
Wednesday, January 20 (Week 2): Looking at Looking, Seeing Ourselves
- James Elkins “Just Looking” (pdf)
- RadioLab, “Why Isn’t the Sky Blue?” (podcast, 21 mins)
- Toni Morrison, “Black Matters” (pdf)
- Clint Smith, “The Stories that Tamir Rice Makes Us Remember” (online)
Friday, January 22
- This American Life, “If You See Racism, Say Racism” (podcast, 18 mins)
- Richard Dyer, “The Matter of Whiteness” (pdf)
- Eula Biss, “White Debt” (online)
Part 2: Illuminated Books
Monday, January 25 (Week 3): The Sounds & Visions of William Blake
- W. J. T. Mitchell, “Word and Image” (pdf)
- William Blake, Songs of Innocence & Experience
- Guest Lecturer: Tyler Starr, Assistant Professor of Art
Wednesday, January 27
- Blake, Songs of Innocence (esp. Introduction, The Lamb, Little Black Boy, Chimney Sweeper, Nurse’s Song, Infant Joy)
- Explore different hand-painted versions of the poems in the Blake digital archive
Friday, January 29
- Songs of Experience (esp. Introduction, Chimney Sweeper, Nurse’s Song, The Tyger, London, Infant Sorrow)
- Explore different hand-painted versions of the poems in the Blake digital archive
- Assignment 1: Secondary Source Reports (SSR)
- Assignment 2: Bibliographic Essay
Monday, February 1 (Week 4)
- D. F. McKenzie, “The Book as an Expressive Form”
- Meet in Rare Books Room
- Guest Lecturer: Sharon Byrd, Special Collections Outreach Librarian
- SSR on McKenzie due
- Optional Activity:
Optional Activity: Hourly Comics Day
Hourly Comics Day
The gist of it is that you draw a short comic for every hour you’re awake about whatever you did during that hour.
– Jenna
Rules for us:
- No stick people.
- Build characters out of simple shapes: circles, characters, rectangles. Minimal features, rudimentary limbs are ok as is basic pattern on clothing.
- Comics do not have to be professional like the example at left. You don’t have to like or not like your drawings. Just draw.
Post neatly cropped photos of your comics to our website. Reduce the size of the images to 800 x 600 or less before uploading to the media library.
Wednesday, February 3
- Rare Books Room – rendezvous with your book & work on your bibliographic essay
Part 3: Semiotics of Signs
Friday, February 5
- W. J. T. Mitchell, “What is an Image?” (pdf)
- RadioLab, “Seeing in the Dark” (podcast, 25 mins)
Monday, February 8 (Week 5)
- Bring W. J. T. Mitchell, “What is an Image?” to class
- Bring hard copies of SSR to class
- Sean Hall, This Means That
- Bibliographic Essay due at midnight
Wednesday, February 10
- Hall, This Means That
Friday, February 12
- Hall, This Means That
- Churchill, “What Does the Fox Say? Onomatopoeia & the Myth of Pure Language“
- Assignment 3: Partner Project: Semiotics Supplement or Ekphrasis Encounter
Part 4: Ekphrasis
Monday, February 15 (Week 6)
- W. J. T. Mitchell, “Ekphrasis and the Other”
- Print & read this essay, divide it into sections, and label the purpose of each.
- John Berger, Ways of Seeing, episode 2 (29 minutes)
- Romantic Ekphrasis (pdf)
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Medusa”
- John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles”
Wednesday, February 17
- Victorian Ekphrasis (pdf)
- Browning, “My Last Duchess”
- Christina Rossetti, “In an Artist’s Studio”
- Tennyson, “The Lady of Shallott”
- Loreena McKennitt, “The Lady of Shallott”
- Modernist Ekphrasis (pdf)
- Loy, “Brancusi’s Golden Bird”
- Williams, “The Great Figure”
- Hughes, “Poem for the Portrait of an African Boy after the Manner of Gauguin”
- Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”
Friday, February 19
- Postmodern Ekphrasis (pdf)
- Frank O’Hara, “Why I Am Not a Painter”
- Eavan Boland, “Degas’ Laundresses”
- Derek Walcott, “Gaughin”
- Cathy Song, “Girl Powdering Her Neck”
- Charles Bernstein, “Slap Me Five, Cleo”
- Jorie Graham, “Two Paintings by Gustav Klimt”
- Alice Fulton, “Close”
- Partner Project Drafts Due by midnight
Part 5: Hacking & Remixing the Book
Monday, February 22 (Week 7): Hacking & Remixing the Book
- Tom Phillips, A Humument: http://www.tomphillips.co.uk/humument
- Mary Ruefle, erasure books: http://www.maryruefle.com/menu.html
- Amy Bagwell: http://amybagwell.com/home.html
- book works: http://amybagwell.com/section/310793_Books.html
- Partner Project Comments due by midnight
Wednesday, February 24
- Kabe Wilson, The Dreadlock Hoax: http://www.dreadlockhoax.co.uk/
- On Remixing Virginia Woolf: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/26/virginia-woolf-a-room-of-ones-own-kabe-wilson-of-one-woman-or-so
- Assignment 5: Hybrid Project
Friday, February 26
- Whitney Trettien: http://whitneyannetrettien.com/
- 17th Century Remixing the Bible: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/04/01/giddings_harmony_the_cut_and_paste_gospels_that_caught_king_charles_eye.html
- FAQS on the Harmony Books: http://blog.whitneyannetrettien.com/2013/03/faqs-on-little-gidding-harmonies.html
- Towards a Prototype of a Digital Edition: http://blog.whitneyannetrettien.com/2013/11/towards-prototype-of-digital-harmony.html
- Partner Projects due
SPRING BREAK
FRIDAY, February 26 (4:30 P.M.) – MONDAY, MARCH 7 (8:30 A.M.)
Part 6: Word Artists, Past & Present
Monday, March 7 (Week 8)
- Guest Artist: Amy Bagwell
- Read and explore Bagwell’s mixed-media portfolio: http://amybagwell.com/
- Bagwell, “Why Wall Poems?“
- Assignment 5: Hybrid Project Idea/Question & preliminary bibliography due
Amy Bagwell is a poet, mixed-media artist, and teacher who seeks to present poetry to people in traditional and new ways. Her poems are/ will be in the journals Terminus Magazine, Vallum: Contemporary Poetry, Dusie Tuesday poems, and Figdust and in the anthologies Topograph and Boomtown. Her poem-centered mixed-media art has been shown around the Southeast and in New York City, and she received a 2013 Arts and Science Council Community Supported Art grant for her poem-centered assemblages.
She co-founded and co-directs Wall Poems, Inc., a project bringing poems by North Carolina writers to the outsides of buildings and other public spaces in Charlotte, and soon beyond. The endeavor has just completed its tenth and eleventh installations with funding from the Knight Foundation, with four more to come under that grant, and was also the recipient of a 2014 Arts and Science Council Neighborhoods in Community Partnership grant for 40-piece, multi-site, poetry-based installation in Charlotte’s Elizabeth neighborhood. Amy also co-founded and co-directs the new Skyline Artists-in-Residence project at the defunct Goodyear tire center in Uptown Charlotte, a building slated for demolition in advance of the construction of Tryon Place, a skyscraper.
She curates literary events at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation, part of the New Frequencies series directed by Jeff Jackson. She received her MFA in Poetry from Queens University of Charlotte and teaches English at Central Piedmont Community College, where she chairs the board of the Literary Events of Sensoria, the school’s annual festival of literature and the arts. She lives in Charlotte with her family.
- Assignment 5: Hybrid Project Idea/Question & preliminary bibliography due, posted to website.
Wednesday, March 9
- Jacob Lawrence, The Great Migration
- MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) resources:
- Comments on Project Ideas due (minimum 3, distribute equally)
- Final Comments on Partner Projects due (in peer critique groups)
Thursday, March 10
- Word-Artist Meet & Greet, Common Hour (11-noon, location TBA)
- Art Opening, DeSouza and Alia Syed (6-8 pm, VAC)
Friday, March 11: CLASS MEETS IN VAC GALLERY
- Class will meet in the Visual Arts Center gallery!
- Guest Artist: Allan DeSouza, http://allandesouza.com/
- DeSouza, “The World Series”
- Video about “Migration Series”
- Review of “Migration Series”
Read what DeSouza says about his art
“In my own work too, pleasure is important, and–at least this is my intent–to fully embed it within the political, perhaps even in seemingly contrasting ways. I tried to pay attention to Jacob Lawrence’s use of what he referred to as ’emotional cubism,’ So, for example, the angles, the framing within each shot are deliberate to create formal narratives, that also direct the viewer in different ways. Likewise, where Lawrence uses captions for each painting, my use of “narrative” text is/within the image.
Similarly, I think of this series as being funny, dependent on word-plays, misreadings, decodings, etc. While my fictional migrant is destabilizing and continuously threatened by the spaces and signage he encounters (he is a “he” in this case, since we see him (the figure in the water) his coping response or perhaps retaliation is to “read” the signage through humour. In this way, the series also functions as a storyboard for a script.
These are just a few instances where I think the formal, aesthetic, are narrative choices are instances of the possibilities of ‘speaking back,’ while remaining open enough for the viewer to negotiate themselves.”
Part 7: Illuminated Books, part II
Monday, March 14 (Week 9)
- Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric
- Reviews:
- Dan Chiasson, “Color Codes”
- Jonathan Farmer, “Blackness Visible”
- Full list of interviews and reviews: http://claudiarankine.com/
- Assignment 4: Hack Citizen
Wednesday, March 16
- Rankine, Citizen
- Work on Citizen hacks
- No class meeting: Dr. Churchill at UGA Modernism Workshop
Friday, March 18
- Rankine, Citizen
- Citizen hacks due
Monday, March 21 (Week 10)
- Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: A Tale of Love and Fallout
Wednesday, March 23
- Redniss, Radioactive
Friday, March 25
- Redniss, Radioactive
EASTER BREAK
FRIDAY, March 25 (4:30 P.M.) – WEDNESDAY, March 30 (8:30 A.M.)
Wednesday, March 30 (Week 11): Hybrid Project Proposals
- Speed Dating: Hybrid Project ideas
Friday, April 1
- Student-Run Workshop (click here for instructions)
- Assignment 5: Hybrid Project Proposals & Bibliographies due
(Post to website and bring 4 copies to class)
Part 8: Graphic Memoir
Monday, April 4 (Week 12)
- Alison Bechel, Fun Home
- Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (Intro. & Chs. 1-2)
Wednesday, April 6
- Alison Bechel, Fun Home
- Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (Chs. 3-4)
Friday, April 8
- Alison Bechel, Fun Home
- Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (Chs. 6-7)
Part 9: Reading & Making
Monday, April 11 (Week 13)
- Maira Kalman, illustrated journalism
Wednesday, April 13
- Britt Stadig: http://brittestadig.com/news.html
- Guest Lecturer: Britt Stadig, Bookbinder
- Bookbinding Demo
- Hybrid Project drafts due
Friday, April 15
- Hybrid Project comments due at the beginning of class (see How To Comment)
- Workshop: Gamestorming
- Be prepared to give your elevator speech & respond to questions
Part 10: Digital Essays/Poems/Games/Blogs
Monday, April 18 (Week 14)
- Jason Nelson: http://www.secrettechnology.com/index.html
Wednesday, April 20
- Merritt Kopas, http://mkopas.net/play/
- Stuart Campbell, “These Memories Won’t Last” (note: this takes a while to load)
Friday, April 22
- Workshop: Trouble-Shooting
- Note: We can move this workshop up to previous Friday, Monday, or Wednesday—whenever it would most help you to conduct user testing and get feedback.
Monday, April 25 (Week 15)
- Composition Notebook Day: bring your co-no-bo’s to class
- For fun: David Troupes, Buttercup Festival
- Hybrid Projects due
Wednesday, April 27
- Lewis Bond, “Hayao Miyazaki and the Essence of Humanity”
- Final Assignment: Design Your Own Domain
- Readings to help you design your own domain
- Principles of Information Architecture
- Information Architecture Guide
- Steve Krug, from Don’t Make Me Think
- Comments on Hybrid Projects due
Friday, April 29
- Composition Notebooks due
- Hybrid Project Reflection Essay due
- Peer, self, and course evaluations (in class)
Monday, May 2 (Classes at Professor’s Option)
Wednesday, May 4 (Classes at Professor’s Option)
May 4 Spring Semester Classes End
May 5 Reading Day
May 6 (8:40 am) – May 11 (5:15 p.m.) Exam Period
- Domains due: May 11, by 5:15 pm – at the latest! (you are encouraged to submit them earlier.
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