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 Ten

Pilot Episode

Using the assigned social group or community handed out to you in class, come up with a 1-3 page plot synopsis for the pilot episode of a television show. The pilot should present an ensemble cast of characters from both within and around that specific community; it should introduce a mystery or fascination of sorts; and it should establish a power dynamic. Before the episode is over you should show (or hint) how this internal power dynamic could be subverted, perverted, or broken.

Have a look at this description of the pilot episode of the HBO series 'Deadwood' if you're stuck:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood_(Deadwood_episode)
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