This course will be structured around female artists, both contemporary and historical, whose work exists at the crossroads of writing and moving images. These women include Chantal Akerman, Mona Hatoum, Agnes Varda, Zora Neale Hurston, Renata Adler, Kathleen Collins, Virginia Woolf, Lynne Tillman, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Chick Strand, Yvonne Rainer, and Hito Steyerl. Discussions will focus on creative texts drawn from filmic sources, films that function as scenes of writing, and in-class creative workshops – all augmented by visits from practicing women artists. Students will be encouraged to produce multi-media work based on their writing.
Sample reading list:
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee
Agnes Varda, The Gleaners and I
Kathleen Collins, Losing Ground
H.D., Notes on Thought and Vision
Renata Adler, Speedboat
Su Friedrich, The Odds of Recovery
Reading/Writing assignments:
We will read creative texts inspired by filmic sources, screen cinematic forms that function as scenes of writing, and consider the work of artists who work in multiple forms and media. Students will produce and workshop a range of short writings at the fluid boundary between text and screen, including cine-essays, filmic fictions, performative scripts, and visionary diaries. Final projects can (but are not required to) take multi-media form.
Prerequisites and Restrictions:
Any 200-level course in CWR or VIS. Students with a strong interest in the subject from other areas of study, but lacking these specific prerequisites, should contact the Instructor.
