Experiments in Text: Inscribing the Body

Winter 2012 quarter

Faculty

David Wolach creative writing, poetics, aesthetics, media/performing arts

Fields of Study

writing

Description

"The body wants to be art and fails at it."

- Carla Harryman

What has "the body" come to mean under neoliberal capitalism? Can art, specifically the poetic text, enact a kind of failure that is productive? Might poetry open up rather than shut down the possibility of re-imaginging bodies? In what ways is the text necessarily gendered? This class will take up "the body" as a site of radical cultural production as expansively as possible within the short time we have, considering some of the ways in which bodies are othered through language, including through discourses of disability, gender performance, and other zones of social dislocation. Each week we'll sample poetic and other work as well as build our own writing portfolios.

Though this is primarily a creative writing class, our writing will push itself outside its usual modes of operation. Emphasis will be put on experiments in breaking genre and mixing media, collaborating on pieces as well as making individual works, and developing a poetics in relation to the social-political. We will discuss and critique the rich tradition of "somatic" practices in the world of performance and live art, including the work of artists such as Marina Abramovic; but we will also explore important recent experiments in poetry and prose by authors such as Hannah Weiner, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and CAConrad. Our end goal will be to curate a show and live reading that allows us to test out some of our textual experiments.

As part of the ongoing literary-politics series PRESS, visiting artists will occasionally workshop with us during the quarter.  For information on past visiting artists and collectives, visit David's public blog at davidwolach.blogspot.com .

Advertised Schedule

5-7p Wed, 4-6p Sat

Location

Olympia

Online Learning

Enhanced Online Learning

Books

Greener Store

Offered During

Evening and Weekend