ENGLISH 105

Writing Worlds


Please note: this is archived course information from 2017 for ENGLISH 105.

Description

English 105 offers an introduction to the study of writing as a "thing" that creates worlds. How are writing and world, inscriptions and social systems related? The course engages with writing as marks and signs, tools and technologies, in a variety of contexts, with particular emphasis on Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Pacific. We look at the "story" of writing - from cave painting to clay tablet to computer screen - and consider and compare the alphabet and non-western systems of inscription. We ask how, and in what ways, forms of writing make worlds, and express the worlding capacity of the human-animal? The course examines how social and cultural systems are "imprinted"  by writing. It further reflects upon multiple literacies (cultural, critical, digital and academic), and the multiliterate image-text relations of graphematic forms, including diagrams, children’s books, comics and the computer screenface. 

Altogether, the course is concerned with writing as design, which gives shape and structure to consciousness and social practice. What is a letter, a sentence, a page, a book, a screen? How did these things come to be recognisable forms, and what is their future? What effects is the digital revolution having on how we think and relate to each other, and how does digital writing construct self and world? Readings address emoji, the alphabet, tā moko and Pacific lifelines, weaving, cartography, calligraphy and graphic books, textiles and design, digital writing and apps.

In this course you will

  • develop an expanded understanding of what writing "is" and the forms that it takes
  • learn how to identity text-types and codes of communication
  • examine a range of literate technologies across cultures and times
  • analyse texts as social scripts, their rules of operation and programming intent
  • engage in modes of critique that include creative construction and critical repurposing

Coursework involves critical and creative aassignments, both analysing "found" texts and creatively constructing  "made" texts, and a two-hour exam which addresses course concerns and asks you to reflect on your work in it.