Welcome to English 2360: American Literature and the Arts, section 101, for the Spring 2020 semester at Appalachian State University. To understand why I have titled it “Conversation and Convergence” here’s the course description from the syllabus.
This course is concerned with the creative conversations and convergences between literature and other art forms. To understand these conversations and convergences we must consider the materials needed to create different art forms and what they share with writing, especially as it changes over time.
What is literature made of? This artistic use of language is created, stored, and communicated using material forms such as human bodies, writing (historically on paper), audio and video recordings, and digital media. The differences in media create clear boundaries between art forms–it is difficult to confuse painting with music– yet similar themes, narratives, and inspirations invite conversations between different art forms. When they share media, however, this creates the possibilities for collaboration such as when we combine images and text to create comics and memes, or when we add poetic language to music to create songs. As digital media are increasingly able to incorporate different kinds of materials (such as audio, video, images, and text), art forms begin to converge, as people create hybrid works that were previously impossible or impractical to produce.
I’m looking forward to our conversations on literature and the arts.