Sherry Antonini

Inspired by Joan Didion¿s famous essay, On Keeping a Notebook, this course will focus on investigating the journal/sketchbooks of a diversified collection of writers and visual artists to explore the roots of their creativity. Careful consideration will be given to the context of their social and cultural time and place across the art history timeline, as well as the writing and images each included in the collection of ideas, plans, rants, and promises that filled their pages and fueled their work. Artists and writers we will study include journal sketchbooks by painters Frida Kahlo, Jean- Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring. We¿ll look closely at fashion designer Alexander McQueen¿s notebooks and explore writer¿s journals by Jack Kerouac and Sylvia Plath, as well as Ann Frank¿s diary, Sei Shonagon¿s pillow book, and the ledger-art notebooks of Native American artists Howling Wolf and Bear¿s Heart. We¿ll also work together to cultivate a journal-keeping habit intended to facilitate thoughts and creative sparks relating to each student¿s writing and developing body of artwork. As a First Year Seminar course, the essay writing focus of this class will be to develop and build skills in writing analytical and response essays pertaining to assigned readings and class discussion. The final project will include an essay with a related creative component.

Musicality and an exquisite choice of words, sensory detail, and form¿the elements of masterful crafting in poetry offer a flight into worlds both familiar and unfamiliar and language for experiences which are often otherwise wordless. In this course students will consider a range of poems across the timeline of literature to learn how to read poetry deeply and thoroughly, both for content and to recognize craft as it supports meaning. Some poets likely to be considered are Sappho, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, Julia Alvarez, Jericho Brown, Ocean Vuong, Jo Harjo, and Amanda Gorman, among others. The work of this course will involve assigned readings, related research, and presentations. Students will be expected to write essays based on course content that are developed from early draft through final revision stages to total 15-20 pages of writing, as well as engage in writing exercises and discussions.

In this course, we?ll read about witches across diverse forms of literature including folk and fairy tales, poetry, plays, and short stories. We?ll read writing by The Brothers Grimm, Octavia Butler, Arthur Miller, Joy Harjo, Rebecca Tamas, Jane Yolan, and Yumiko Kurahashi to trace the footsteps and flight patterns of witches as they appear in various roles such as mother, monster, healer, and teacher. In support of our investigations, we?ll also read selected critique essays from Donald Haase?s Fairy Tales and Feminism and from Emma Donoghue?s Kissing the Witch, a collection of deconstructed and reassembled fairy tales. As a FYSI course, the core emphasis of this class will be developing writing skills in preparation for FYSII courses and other writing assignments across SAIC?s curriculum. Students will engage in comprehensive discussion of these readings, conduct related research, and write response and analytical essays, with a final project that incorporates a creative component

What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Sophomore Seminar offers strategies for students to explore, reflect upon, and connect common themes and interests in the development of an emerging creative practice that will serve as the basis of their ongoing studies at SAIC and beyond. Students will examine historical and contemporary influences and contextualize their work in relation to the diverse art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary each semester. Presentations by visiting artists and guest speakers will provide the opportunity for students to hear unique perspectives on sustaining a creative practice. One-on-one meetings with faculty will provide students with individualized mentorship throughout the semester. During interdisciplinary critiques, students will explore a variety of formats and tools to analyze work and provide peer feedback. The class mid-term project asks students to imagine a plan for their creative life and devise a self-directed course of study for their time at school. The course concludes with an assignment asking students to develop and document a project or body of work demonstrating how the interplay of ideas, technical skills, and formal concerns evolve through iteration, experimentation and revision.

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.