The Library is Burning (Interdisciplinary Writing Workshop)
School for the Art Institute of Chicago
BFA Writing Department, Fall 2007
Instructor: Mary Walling Blackburn
Course Description:
The Library is Burning: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Producing, Disseminating, and Receiving Text
Let us begin to rethink writing’s relationship to aural and visual production and make valiant attempts at an interdisciplinary practice. Together, we will consider writing as object (from ancient clay tablets to library as sculpture) and closely observe writing as it transforms into and out of sound (from the loudspeakers of a van to radio transmission, from seismic vibration to the deafening speech of dictators). Moreover, the class will begin to convert this critical speculation into writing methods that will compromise the borders between sound and words and things. Consequently, we will wrangle with Jacques Attali’s claim: “The world is not for the beholding. It is for the hearing. It is not legible, but audible.” As well as Deligny’s threat: “Sometimes language is more problem than tool.”
Examples of interdisciplinary text? In the late 19th century, Joseph Pujol, French “Fartiste” sang his songs by literally forcing air out of his anus. In 20th century Italy, Ezra Pound eschewed the physical page for the ether–broadcasting fascist plays in exile. Today, Jamaican Dance Hall “versioning” consists of replacing the lyrics of a song but retaining the tune; consequently, one text inhabits the remains of another. All of these disparate methods of producing, disseminating, and receiving text will begin to map out our own potential resistance to old forms and conventions.
We will look at the work of Ezra Pound, Fernand Deligny, Saliou Traoré, Kajsa Dahlberg, Gary Simmons, Alan Weiss, Claudia Rankine, Adolf Wolffli, Nina Katchedorian, Suzan Lori Parks, Jacqueline Goss, Joseph Grigely, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Catherine Clement, Meredith Monk, Janet Cardiff, La Monte Young, Mladen Dolar, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Carolinian navigation methods and castrati songs, amongst others.
Syllabus: syllabus_library
