AIS: Technotexts.

Catalog description

This course examines the relationship between texts and the media--oral, written, and digital--through which they are conveyed. The course begins by considering the relationship between word and voice, our material being practices of oral storytelling and spoken word poetic performance. The second and longest unit of the semester examines the literary possibilities opened up by different forms of "the book" - including the illuminated manuscript, the printed book in the West, and the Torah scroll. The final unit examines how verbal artists are engaging with the digital technologies. Throughout the semester, participants will not only be consumers of media; they will also be makers: each unit will involve a "making" exercise in which we practice one of the techniques that we have been studying, including oral performance, letterpress printing, and digital storytelling.