DMS 607, Reg. #: 093761
ENG 584, Reg. #:  309604

Graduate Theory Seminar:

Poetics of Adjacency

Networked Art/Writing, Small Press

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Prof. Glazier

Spring 2002

Weds. 12:30-3:10, 110 Baldy

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We will be looking at the role of adjacency in experimental art and at how adjacency informs the literary, art, and media object. This will involve a look at the impact of adjacency on literary culture in the second half of the twentieth century in the context of the little magazine (their relationship to literary communities and the culture of adjacency of authors within particular magazines), with particular emphasis on assemblings and other network-based artistic compilations.

The broader context of adjacency in cultural and literary production, both print and digital, will serve as a grounding for the examination of specific works. Namely, we will look at the poetics of adjacency/disjuncture of adjacent textual elements, the receivable, the conceptual, the interactive.

The seminar will also be informed by planned literary computing events to take place at UB in Spring, 2002. These events will bring leading international scholars in the field, including Neil Hennessey, Katherine Parrish, and Roberto Simanowski, to Buffalo. Visits by keynote poets & artists will also be included in the course content, including proposed visits by Robert Creeley , Milli Graffi, a special "Canadian Pataphysics" event, and Simon Biggs.

Course Requirements: Students will be asked to give oral presentations on topics and movements related to course content ("receivable" art, fanzines, surveillance art, concrete poetry, Lettrism, Fluxus, assemblings, digital interactive art, poetics of literary computing). These may include: a literary history of a little magazine (historic or current), electronic journal, small press, media theory, form of hypertext practice/hypertext project, from the perspective of adjacency; a presentation on "micro-adjacency", the poetics, politics, and aesthetics of the adjacency within texts of specific poets; other topics as suggested. Students will also investigate one secondary source, adding depth to the course text and identify and present one interactive digital project on the Web. The final project will be an assembling (following criteria made explicit in the design of the project) Alternative final projects may include a paper or Web-based project on a topic related to course content including literary histories of little magazines/digital projects, examination of the poetics of individual authors (or an author page project), investigations of concepts of community and space as represented in media theories, taxonomies of hypertext practice, hypertext theory, or related topics.

Class will be structured as a participatory investigative seminar where together we examine 20th century experimental movements in networked art. The goal is to gain greater insight into the concept of receivable art foundational to present-day interactive digital media poetics.

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Primary text: Craig J. Saper, Networked Art

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The seminar can accommodate specific student projects or interests. Please contact the instructor (glazier@acsu.buffalo.edu) with any questions. More info is available on the Web (http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/584/).