Overview

English 569 investigates topics at the intersection of English Studies (literature, writing, rhetoric, film) and the emerging technologies that are used to create knowledge in the discipline. Through analyzing and producing digital texts, students will acquire critical tools with which to understand and influence the multiple connections between digital media and literature, writing, and rhetoric.

This quarter, the focus is on words and typography. We will work primarily with type, but type like you've never seen it before. Type on the page. Type on the screen. Type on everyday objects. Type on bodies. Big type. Teeny type. Moving type. Type as image, and image as type.

The first weeks of the course we will take up the topics of new media and visual design. We will think about what, exactly, "new media" are, and will consider how visual rhetoric can convey meaning, affect tone and mood, and make arguments.

During the second part of the course, you will apply this exploration and analysis to creating your own compositions in a digital space. You will experiment with using the visual design of words as an important element of their meaning. Working with your own writing or familiar quotes, poems, or other alphabet-based texts, you will compose a short series of visual/verbal remixes, some static, some in motion.

No previous experience with digital media is required! Many class meetings will be devoted to "studio time" during which you will work independently and in groups on your projects for the class.