At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;/ Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,/ But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, / Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor/ towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point/ There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
Poeisis means making. More than any other animal, we are characterized by making. We make friends, enemies, love, war, bread, art, theories, stories, plans, excuses, commitments, gestures, time. We make worlds, personal and public. We make using technology, the logic of 'techne,' art. New worlds are the result of new logic, or new technique. In this course we will examine a variety of aspects of making, at all scales, from the scale of an individual poem to the scales of science, invention, and creation, from the emotional to the intellectual, from the ideal to the pragmatic, from the avant-garde to the vernacular.
While we will draw on many sources regarding both poetics and technology, the fundamental assumption of the course will be that one leans about poetics by maing. Consequently, we will augment the seminar to include experimentation through projects. One of our poetic "filtration" systems is courtesy of Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence. A list of suggested readings is included.
Oblique Strategies--Some reconsiderations for the idea factory