Course Description

Course Description

Can a highway billboard be counted as literature? Is Bob Dylan a sellout? Who is Lady Gaga? Can Google be used as a poetic constraint? How do internet phenomena like Youtube and Facebook shape our attitudes toward wisdom, knowledge, and information? Are we morally implicated just by watching? Is constructing our own identities a dangerous thing, and is deconstruction possible?

In this course we will try and answer these questions.

We will discuss relatively nascent literary forms, such as children’s literature, graphic novels, genre fiction, fan fiction, and blogging; we will explore the art of adaptation, and talk about the ways in which the narrative techniques used in film and television have shaped our formal understanding of image, character, metaphor, and plot; we will question the mythologizing power of nostalgia and ask whether speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy) can offer us a better understanding of our own world.

Come prepared to both read and write generously. This course will be graded on enthusiasm, regular attendance, and a final portfolio of polished work.

Required Reading List:

Alan Moore, From Hell

Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

Additional reading materials will be provided in photocopy form.

Assignment Seven

I Google Myself

For this assignment, I’d like you to take one sentence you’ve written this semester (This can be a sentence from one of your take-home exercises, something you’ve written as a comment on the class blog, something you’ve written while note-taking, any complete thought you’ve generated for this class) and Google it. 

For example: “Happy Thanksgiving!”

Next, examine the search results.   I’m sure there will be thousands upon thousands of pages of search results generated from your Google.

Using only the language found on these search results pages, I’d like you to construct a poem.  You can configure this language in any way you choose, but the important thing is that you are only using words you find on these pages. 

I recommend using some individual words (for example, Googling “happy thanksgiving” gives me words like, “spank, mint, antelope, personality”) and organizing them in strange, inventive ways.

I also recommend using whole sentences or blocks of text (for example, I also get “What better place to spend an autumn weekend” and “Two in the moonlight”)

Mix and match. Play around.  The goal is not to create a poem that conveys a specific message or “theme.”  The goal is rather to find out how words and phrases relate to other words and phrases. How strange ideas and images, when placed next to each other on the page, create strange connections.  Creativity and silliness are encouraged.

The following poem was generated in a similar way:

“HAPPY SPANKSGIVING”

(Spank). Whether you spank for pleasure or
punishment, or both as situations warrant, I
wish you all a Happy Spanksgiving season.

Spank hard...spank safe!

Too many carbohydrates in Italy . . . Jamaica it is!
I'm thankful for big spoons and floors!
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY ROCKSTAR!

Spank hard...spank safe!

What better place to spend an Autumn weekend
but in a lingeree drawer. Happy Spanksgiving.
You are repressed but you're remarkably dressed is it real?

Spank hard...spank safe!

Typical. I do all the work and the “King” gets
the credit. Happy Spanksgiving! Two In the
Moonlight, Ack! Antelope! I could use a breath mint.

Spank hard...spank safe!

Personality and I are finally getting along.
Happy belated Spanksgiving to all by the way!
I had a nice time in michigan...sunny ...

Spank hard...spank safe!

Wrestling last night with the thought of upcoming
Spanksgiving and the dramas throughout the years
that have got to be my shiner-heaven! hoo-Ray!

Spank hard...spank safe!

Strokers! Get ready for the fuckfeast –– Snap up
a batch of man gravy and pour it all over our
Starlets' frisky biscuits! Have I found the other side???

Spank hard...spank safe!

Now Ride! By now a lot of people are showing
up for their holiday weekend in the desert. A large
contingent at the retail store for "Leather Happy Hour."

Spank hard...spank safe!

The only Turkeys I'll be seeing this Spanksgiving are my dear
friends Brook, Katie and Baby Richy. I was very happy
to help them mark this moment in their family's growth.

Spank hard...spank safe!

We got lots more smut in store for you all month long!
(And on a school night, nonetheless!) I had to kill
them to make them happy or some shit.

Spank hard...spank safe!

A ball, peeking out from behind rows and rows
of empty happy meal boxes ... know what the hell
they are doing :) Oh and everyone have a SpanksGiving!!!!!

Spank hard...spank safe!

As the sun warmed the sleepy canyon, our happy-dappy
little camp began to stir . Something that'll make a cat
happy? A wonderful day of spanking and sucking!

Spank hard...spank safe!

Lists make me happy. ... my vietnam [Nov 21,
12.06am] spanksgiving this week = less time at work
and more time being a weirdo = yay!

Spank hard...spank safe!

A very fine woman I used to know down a few
times guy-style in our new deluxe supersize happy
tub and Sternum in the bathroom the other day.

Spank hard...spank safe!

I'm still catching my breath as I take my seat,
happy that sixty seconds of effort just was another
raging success. So tomorrow's the yankee spanksgiving.

Spank hard...spank safe!
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