Stephen Williams

Surrealism is among the preeminent modes of twentieth century art. It is the product of a specific moment in history, and yet it has proved remarkably adaptable through time and across cultures, languages, media, and genres. This FYS I course introduces students to college-level writing, reading, and critical thinking skills using Surrealism and its legacy as a focal point, and prepares them for FYS II and upper level Liberal Arts courses. We will consider critical and creative writing, as well as some visual art, by figures such as André Breton, Phillippe Soupault, Leonora Carrington, Alice Rahon, Aimé Cesaire, Octavio Paz, Barbara Guest, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Bei Dao. Some topics we might investigate include Surrealism's relationship to the art that came before it; its conceptions of daily life, and individual and collective personhood; its engagement with contemporaneous developments in science and technology; and its relationship to issues of race, class, gender, and to historical events. Students should expect to compose (plan, draft, critique, and revise) 15-20 double-spaced pages of formal writing, in addition to regular in-class and out-of-class writing assignments.

Where is the line between a work of art and 'real life,' and what happens—aesthetically, ethically, politically—when artists and writers question, blur, subvert, or conceal it? To what extent is an author part of the fiction they create? What is 'true' in a fictional or virtual world, and who decides? Though these questions—implicit in any kind of aesthetic figuration—are as old as art itself, they have taken on a particular urgency as mistrust and disinformation—and the technologies that enable them—increasingly pervade our lives. The course, then, takes these issues as a focal point as students build upon the foundational writing skills they began learning in FYS I, introducing more rigorous argumentation and research. Among the topics we might consider are the concepts of the persona, the shibboleth, and the 'fourth wall'; trompe-l'oeil painting; the poems of Ossian; Fernando Pessoa's heteronyms; Borges's Pierre Menard; Brecht's 'alienation effects'; pseudonyms (as a means of personal liberation, as a response to oppression); camp (in its emphasis on artifice over naturalism); forgeries and disputed attributions; NFTs and Artificial Intelligence. Students will produce 20-25 pages of formal, revisable writing, as well as informal at-home and in-class assignments. The course involves extensive peer review and collaborative work, and culminates in a research paper on a topic of the student's choosing.

How have artists in literature, theater, music, and other sound-based media represented or incorporated the human voice into their work? This FYS II course builds on the writing and thinking skills students began to develop in FYS I by introducing more advanced argumentation and research methods. To guide our inquiry, we might consider questions such as: How do we understand 'authentic' or 'common' speech, what accounts for its claim on our attention, and what are the politics around it? How does its apparent spontaneity relate to formal aspects of a work of art? Why do diverse folk traditions put human speech in the mouths of animals? How do we experience, on the one hand, divine or oracular voices understood to come from beyond humankind, and on the other, AI-generated simulacra? What does it mean to appropriate another's voice, and why is spoken language such a significant marker of individual and collective identity? How have new technologies of amplification, reproduction, and distribution changed how we hear ourselves? Sources we may consider include: Wordsworth, European opera, Brecht / Weill, Lotte Lenya, Cathy Berberian, Derek Walcott, Kamau Braithwaite, Linda Rosenkrantz, Meredith Monk, Bernadette Mayer, Pere Gimferrer, Nathaniel Mackey, American hip hop. Students can expect to produce 20-25 pages of formal, revisable writing, as well as regular in- and out-of-class assignments. The course builds toward a self-directed research paper on a topic of the student's choosing.