Literary Kinds, Emerging Genres...

I. Exploring the evolution of our own (academic) writing

Day 1 (T, Jan. 17) Introduction: Classifying Ourselves

Michael Foucault. Preface. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of
the Human Sciences. 1966; rpt. and trans. New York: Vintage, 1973. xv-xxiv.

Day 2 (Th, Jan. 19)
Jonathan Lethem, The ecstasy of influence: a plagiarism. Harper's Magazine. February 2007.

Ed Folsom, Database as Genre: The Epic Transformation of Archives and
Peter Stallybrass, Against Thinking. PMLA Special Topic:
Remapping Genre. 122, 5 (October 2007): 1571-1588.

bring to class two copies of a recent sample of your own writing
(and, if possible, the instructions/prompt that provoked it):
what genre is it? what are its defining characteristics? what form does it follow?
in Lethem, Folsom and Stallybass's terms, how does it "think,"
"think with,"or "think against" other forms?
in what ways is it individualized, imitative, collaborative, creative?

5 p.m. Sun, Jan. 22: post on-line some reflections about writing in your discipline--
(or: if you don't have one yet, "college-level writing"):
what do you understand, from our class discussion or elsewhere,
about the conventions = genre of academic writing?
what ideas do you have about (digitally initiated?)
transformations of your own writing, or that in your discipline?

Day 3 (T, Jan. 24) Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0
Three digital senior projects:
A Moment's Ornament (Aya, Summer 2011)
Seeing Stigma (An Active Mind, Spring 2011)
Mooring Gaps: Marianne Moore's Bryn Mawr Poetry (Jen Rajchel, Spring 2010)
Two of the authors, Jen Rajchel '11 and Aya Martin-Seaver '13, will be joining us for class.

Day 4 (Th, Jan. 26) Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Networking the Field (January 10, 2012).
Introduction: Obsolesence. Planned Obsolesence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy.
New York University, 2009.

4:30 p.m., Th, Jan. 16: "Applications of Digital Cartography to
Digital Humanities," Phillips Wing, Magill Library, Haverford.

5 p.m. Sun, Jan. 29: post on-line some reflections about possible
transformations of digital writing in the humanities, and beyond

Day 5 (T, Jan. 31) Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Chapter One: "Peer
Review" and Chapter Two: "Authorship," Planned Obsolesence.

Cassie Kosarek, Coming @ Poetry from Two Directions;
On the Argument of the Origin/On the Origin of the Argument;
The Role of Fiction in Science, on Tumblr and Facebook;
and Wanderings Pertaining to my English Thesis.
Cassie will be joining us for class.

Day 7 (T, Feb. 7) Cathy Davidson and Theo Goldberg. "(In)conclusive: Thinking the Future of Digital Thinking." The Future of Thinking; Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. MIT Press, 2010. 175-199.

Day 8 (Th, Feb. 9) Judith Butler, Chapter 2: “Violence, Mourning, Politics.” Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso, 2004. 19-49.

II. Exploring the evolution of graphic narratives

Day 9 (T, Feb. 14) Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. William Morrow, 1994.

Day 10 (Th, Feb. 16) Understanding Comics, continued

Day 11 (T, Feb. 21) Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood.

Day 12 (Th, Feb. 23) Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return. New York: Pantheon, 2005.

5 p.m. S, Feb. 26: post on-line a proposal for the remainder of our semester's work together. Begin with a paragraph or two of a mid-semester evaluation of how we're doing in learning together: what's working? What needs working on? What should we keep, of our shared practices? What might we change up? Turn then from questions of "form" to those of "content": make a proposal for our next imaginative test case(s). What other genre(s) would you like to explore, if the remainder of the class were an independent study? What do you recommend our exploring together? Why? What might we learn from doing so?

Day 13 (T, Feb. 28) On-line and in-class discussion about our next test case(s)

5 p.m. W, Feb. 29: respond on-line to two of your classmates' proposals,
trying to nudge us as a group toward some consensus...

Day 14 (Th, Mar. 1) Discussion, continued....until a decision is made!

8 p.m. Fri, Mar. 2: second 4-pp. web event, exploring the evolution of graphic analysis (or: of the genre of the
classroom? of the evolving, diverse self? of your first web event?)

SPRING BREAK Mar. 2-11

Day 15 (T, Mar. 13) Persepolis (DVD), 2.4.7 Films. Dir. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronaud. Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2008 (95 minutes).

Day 16 (Th, Mar. 15) Neil Gaiman, A Game of You (The Sandman: Volume 5). 1993; rpt. Vertigo, 2011.

Day 17 (T, Mar. 20)  A Game of You, continued

Day 18 (Th, Mar. 22) Learning and reflecting about how we read/listen to/experience/accept stories:
Listening Beyond Life and Choice: The Civil Conversations Project. August 11, 2011 (51 minutes).
Memory and Forgetting. Radio Lab 3, 4 (59 minutes).
This American Life, 109: Notes on Camp. August 8, 1998. (58 minutes)
The Way of All Flesh, dir. Adam Curtis. BBC, 1997 (58 minutes).

III. Exploring the evolution (and relation) of realistic and speculative genres

Day 19 (T, Mar. 27) Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Sacks. New York: Crown, 2010

Day 20 (Th, Mar. 29) Henrietta Lacks, continued

Law and Order "Immortal," dir. Jim McKay. TV episode, 2010. 60 minutes. (Recap and review).

Day 28 (Th, Apr. 26) Teach In!
Join with several other students to share your reflections on your experiences over the semester, encouraging, in a provocative and entertaining way, further exploration on the part of others in the class.

12:30 p.m. Fri, May 11:  12-pp. final web-events, checklists, portfolios, and self-evaluations due on-line.