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.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Translation and Response

Let's try something a little different this week. I'm going to post a video below. I'd like the first person to comment on this blog to watch it, and then post a different link as their reply. This new link must in some way respond to the ideas or attitudes present in the first video. (You can interpret this however you like, but I want the connection to be clear.)

I would then like the next person to watch this new video, and post a video response to that, etc... until everyone has contributed and we have a chain of links, each of which responds in some way to the previous contribution.

No repeats please.

Here's mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb9eL3ejXmE
Posted by at

12 comments:

  1. Sm4rT?November 8, 2010 at 10:54 AM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfu5QGHHsaY&feature=related

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownNovember 8, 2010 at 11:13 AM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdi_VHvCR3A&p=1395F00D884CA3DA&playnext=1&index=2

    What is scary is that this man owned a skateboard shop in my hometown. Appropriate environment for children? I don't think so.

    ReplyDelete
  3. CaseyNovember 8, 2010 at 11:39 AM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez5fu24JLpM

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mike_FNovember 8, 2010 at 1:19 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIrq_wnNNnY&feature=related

    ReplyDelete
  5. MichelleNovember 8, 2010 at 1:31 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7fZR6RS4lY&feature=fvst

    ReplyDelete
  6. Joel W. CollinsNovember 12, 2010 at 10:54 AM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zvTRQr7ns8

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousNovember 14, 2010 at 12:03 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84rvKz0h8Ts

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousNovember 14, 2010 at 12:46 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_P1OhKUw6I&feature=related

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownNovember 14, 2010 at 9:33 PM

    http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1781938

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownNovember 15, 2010 at 12:08 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOkEsgXeAq0

    ReplyDelete
  11. brich47November 15, 2010 at 12:35 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZfZiBRFM5w

    ReplyDelete
  12. Amanda ANovember 15, 2010 at 1:35 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt2OVAgkHBc

    ReplyDelete

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