Posted: July 31st, 2015

LCC CTS 2 Re-Writing Option .

LCC CTS 2 Re-Writing Option .

Each student will produce a 1500 word text to be submitted electronically via Moodle using Turnitin. This text will describe, analyse and situate the question set by the option tutor as set out below.
You are to choose a sample of writing that in someway has affected you since you have been at LCC. This example of writing could range from whole book to a short poem and anything in between. The criteria you should used when deciding which text to choose, should be based on whether it has moved you, provoked you, agitated you, engaged you, affected you in some way.
Your essay will be in three parts. The first part will introduce the reader to the text by telling us Whyyou chose this particular piece of writing. Then you will briefly describe Whatit is, Who wrote it, When it was written, Where it was produced and if appropriate How it was written.
The second part will be where you contextualise the writing in more detail. You will research as much as you can into the story of its production, the story of the writer and its wider connections to other types of historical and/or contemporary writing and communication.
The third part is where you analyse the writing in terms of its’ affect’ and how it has agitated or stimulated you. You will need to ask yourself a set of questions about how it has transferred its meanings and its feelings from the writer to the page and then to you. You will have to explore a number of ways of analysing these ideas. To do this you will have to research into the many different ways texts can be and have been analysed in the past and presently.
You will need to include an annotated Reference List of at least 7 key sources of information linked to in-text citations and a Bibliography consisting of at least 10 other sources (books, articles, websites). The Reference List and Bibliography should be organised using the Harvard Referencing System as set out by the CITE THEM RIGHT ONLINE resource found at: http://arts.ac.libguides.com/citethemright
And use appropriate supporting visual material, included in the text.
Hand-in/Deadline: Friday 20th March 2014 by 16.00.00 GMT (4pm)
Learning Outcomes: On completion of this unit you will be able to:
1. Express your opinions as a result of informed, structured research. (Research) 2. Engage in constructive and informed critical argument and debate. (Analysis) 3. Place your practice in a broader visual context. (Subject Knowledge)
4. Employ appropriate means of communication in the presentation of concepts and ideas. (Communication and Presentation)
Indicative content and structure
The option will introduce students to a range of different writing methods and practices while simultaneously offering critiques and discussions around modes of writing, knowledge production and reading, particularly in relation to the reading, writing and production of images and art/design/fashion objects. The option moves through introductions to critical theory, semiotics, criticism towards more unconventional and less ‘academic’ approaches to writing including fan/slash fiction, anecdotal theory or personal narrative, poetry and calligrams as well as looking closely at articulating and collapsing relationships between text and image.
The  option is particularly geared towards the production of innovative and rigorous research and writing practices and building skills that move beyond (though through) criticality towards intimate, radical and political relationships between students and the objects of their study.
You will describe, analyse and situate a chosen piece of cultural production in 3 distinct, separate and different ways. You will take 3 different views, angles, positions, writing styles, of it. You could look at it through 3 different theoretical ‘lenses’ from your own area of practice.  You could do a semiotic analysis of it. You could psychoanalyse it. How would Sigmund Freud see it? How would a forensic scientist look at it? How would an artist look at it?  Would people of different ages, cultures, genders look at it differently? You could use 3 different genres of fiction writing to describe, analyse and situate it.  How would you describe it in a sci-fi way? If it was written like a gothic novel what would it read like?

Short Bibliography: Key Texts
Maria Fusco (ed). 2011. Who is this who is coming? Inscription as Method in Contemporary Art Writing. London: Article Press.
Kathy Acker. 1985.  Realism for the Cause of Future Revolution.  From Art After Modernism, Rethinking Representation in Bodies of Work. 1997.  Serpent’s Tail: London.
Roland Barthes. 1967. Death of the Author. Aspen, no. 5-6 in 1967
http://www.tbook.constantvzw.org/wp-content/death_authorbarthes.pdf
An Indication of the (type of) texts to be read during the option.
Foucault, Michel (1983). This is not a pipe. Berkeley: University of California Press
Jane Gallop. 2002. Anecdotal Theory. USA: Duke University Press.
Chris Kraus.  2004.  Emotional Technologies in Video Green. 2004.  USA: Semiotexte.
AudreLorde and Carol Smith. 1985. The Cancer Journals. USA: Sheba Feminist Press.
Yve Lomax. 2000. Writing the Image: An Adventure with Art and Theory. London. I.B. Taurus.
Idioglossia: an art writing glossary. London: The Art Writing Guild.
Sharon Kivland. 2012. Freud on Holiday: Appendix 1. London: information as material.
Goldsmiths, K. (2011) Uncreative Writing: Redefining Language and Authorship in the Digital Age. Columbia University Press.
Can techniques traditionally thought to be outside the scope of literature, including word processing, databasing, identity ciphering, and intensive programming, inspire the reinvention of writing? The Internet and the digital environment present writers with new challenges and opportunities to reconceive creativity, authorship, and their relationship to language. Confronted with an unprecedented amount of texts and language, writers have the opportunity to move beyond the creation of new texts and manage, parse, appropriate, and reconstruct those that already exist.

In addition to explaining his concept of uncreative writing, which is also the name of his popular course at the University of Pennsylvania, Goldsmith reads the work of writers who have taken up this challenge. Examining a wide range of texts and techniques, including the use of Google searches to create poetry, the appropriation of courtroom testimony, and the possibility of robo-poetics, Goldsmith joins this recent work to practices that date back to the early twentieth century. Writers and artists such as Walter Benjamin, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Andy Warhol embodied an ethos in which the construction or conception of a text was just as important as the resultant text itself. By extending this tradition into the digital realm, uncreative writing offers new ways of thinking about identity and the making of meaning.
Popova, M. (2013) Brainpickings.org (Internet) Available at: <http://www.brainpickings.org/ >[Accessed 10.12.2103]
‘Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who has also written for Wired UK, The New York Times, Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, and The Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.’ (http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/about/)
Sword, H. (2012) Stylish Academic Writing. Harvard University Press
‘Elegant data and ideas deserve elegant expression, argues Helen Sword in this lively guide to academic writing. For scholars frustrated with disciplinary conventions, and for specialists who want to write for a larger audience but are unsure where to begin, here are imaginative, practical, witty pointers that show how to make articles and books a pleasure to read—and to write. Dispelling the myth that you cannot get published without writing wordy, impersonal prose, Sword shows how much journal editors and readers welcome work that avoids excessive jargon and abstraction. Sword’s analysis of more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles across a wide range of fields documents a startling gap between how academics typically describe good writing and the turgid prose they regularly produce.
Stylish Academic Writing showcases a range of scholars from the sciences, humanities, and social sciences who write with vividness and panache. Individual chapters take up specific elements of style, such as titles and headings, chapter openings, and structure, and close with examples of transferable techniques that any writer can master.’ –
An Indication of the (type of) texts to be read during the option.
Lupton, E. and Miller, J.A. (2008) Design Writing Research: Writing on Graphic Design. Phaidon London, New York.
‘As a college student I have found this book to be a remarkable collection of thoughts and essays on the subject of graphic design. Covering a wide variety of topics from ancient Greek boustrophedon to Deconstruction and modern pictography it is a helpful, informative and enjoyable read. Ellen Lupton ‘knows her stuff’ and provides an insightful journy through the world of graphic design. Whether you’re a fellow student, design enthusiast or avid reader you should read this book. You won’t regret it.’- [email protected]
Strunk, W. Jr. (2012 )The Elements of Style. CreateSpace
This classic reference is a must-have for any student or writer. In this brief handbook, Strunk identifies the principal requirements of proper American English style and concentrates on the most often violated rules of composition. Authoritative and engagingly written, this is simply the greatest book of its kind. “The Elements of Style,” by William Strunk, is a prescriptive American English writing style guide comprising eight “elementary rules of usage,” ten “elementary principles of composition,” “a few matters of form,” a list of forty-nine “words and expressions commonly misused,” and a list of fifty-seven “words often misspelled.” This reprint reproduces the text of the 1920 edition. This authoritative and engagingly written manual retains its immediacy and relevance. Strunk begins with the basic rules of usage, offering explanations of correct punctuation and grammar. Covers grammar, diction, syntax, sentence construction and other basic writing essentials.
Sword, H. (2013) Stylish Academic Writing | Office of Faculty Development & Diversity [Internet] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQsRvAVSVeM [Accessed 10.12.2103]
Francis, P. (2011) Inspiring Writing in Art and Design: Taking a Line for a Write. Intellect, London
‘Inspiring Writing in Art and Design is an excellent resource for all those who wish to engage art, design and media students in the practice of writing […] I would highly recommend Dr. Francis’s generous and inspiring book. ‘ – JacCattaneo, Networks Magazine, ADM-HEA