An introduction to the genres and craft of creative writing, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Students will study and practice writing in various modes through composition, peer critique, and research. Lecture or lecture with discussion section. Offers credit for the UK Core requirement in Intellectual Inquiry in Arts & Creativity. Fulfills ENG pre-major requirement and provides ENG minor credit.

Meets May 12 - July 07

Internet

Instructor: Shannon Branfield

The Land Down Under. Australia looms large in the cultural imagination, a wild land of vast desert and poisonous animals. The last frontier. Films like Mad Max and Crocodile Dundee have gained international attention, but they tell just part of the Australian story. With directors including Peter Weir and Baz Luhrmann and the star power of Mel Gibson, Hugh Jackman, and Nicole Kidman, this course will use Australian films to explore questions of history and national identity. Students will also be introduced to the basics of film technique and interpretation.

 

1. THE COURSE MEETS JUNE 10-JULY 8.

2. MEETINGS WILL BE CONDUCTED IN SYNCHRONOUS ONLINE FORMAT IN ZOOM. (Thus

students do not need to be in Lexington to take the course.)

3. NOTE: ENG 330 is NOT a required prerequisite for this section of ENG 440G. Anyone interested in

the topic is welcome to enroll (i.e., has the "consent of the instructor," who may be reached at

namerof@uky.edu).

 

Though Shakespeare designed his plays to be spoken aloud and understood aloud, John Heminges and

Henry Condell, two of his longtime partners in the theater business, thought they were also valuable texts

for private reading so they published a collected edition several years after their friend's death. This course

is founded on the notion that these forms of encounter with the plays—private reading (whether silent or—

as would have been far more common in Shakespeare's day than in ours—aloud) and communal reading

and speaking aloud (and thus listening)—are mutually illuminating and provide a way into a capacious

understanding and appreciation of the interacting emotions and arguments of the characters, their ideas and

doubts, their desires and needs, their griefs and joys. To read a Shakespearean role as if you knew what it

meant is a great start toward finding out what in fact it does mean, or rather what it can mean, as is hearing

other people read other characters' parts as if they too knew what they meant by what they said. We will

look at how different oral performances find different meanings in the same works. We will use two plays,

one a tragedy and one a comedy: probably King Lear and Twelfth Night. We will read lots of

Shakespeare's words in class, tinkering with rhythm, stress, and silence, and we will look at video and listen

to audio versions of our plays to get a sense of how other people think they should sound. The aim of the

course is not to produce actors for public consumption but to provide readers with a more vital connection

to Shakespeare's words—a performance for oneself.