The Center for Experimental Humanities
New York University
Spring 2018
DRAP-GA 3026
Literature, media studies, history of art
At a time when digital techniques for saving and indexing allow us to consolidate endless memory in pocket-size devices, what memorial power remains in a sentence or paragraph? More than a course on memoir, this is an intensive introduction to the work of art as mnemonic device, or system to aid and deepen, and/or create, memory.
This course aims to familiarize students with varied creative texts that at once describe the art of memory and engage in acts of recollection, recovery, and memorialization. Readings and artworks selected for the syllabus frequently defy straightforward generic classification. They offer examples of the ways in which works of literature—along with sculpture, installations, film, and other forms of visual art—emerge out of authors’ careful thinking through of relationships between language and memory, as well as between images and memory.
To download a PDF of the syllabus, please click on the disk icon at above right