Alien Writing: Invented Scripts from Demons to Dune

Catalog description

This class is an exploration of human graphic ingenuity, and also of human limitations in the attempt to imagine how human and non-human others write (and read). We will examine ancient magical treatises, fantasy literature, Hollywood blockbusters and B-movies, and video-games to ask: Why do people invent writing systems for fictive worlds? What can writing systems used by devils and demons or angels and aliens tell us about writing systems invented and used by humans (such as Mesopotamian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Viking runes, and the Cherokee syllabary)? How are “con-scripts”—writing systems invented for fictive worlds—different from and/or similar to other writing systems? Why do people learn to write in Tolkien’s cirth or to “read” magical charakteres?