Department of English

What is poetics? How does it differ from other forms of criticism in terms of both attitude or posture and method? In terms of practices of art and politics, What is its relationship to poiesis and ethics -- what is poethics? — as articulated by such distinct thinkers as Joan Retallack and  Denise Ferreira da Silva? For the seminar, let’s think about the above as matters of a) critical inquiry b) art practice and c) professional discipline. It may be possible to triangulate by way of “critique” and “aesthetics.”  For about half the semester, we will do groundwork, drawing from, in addition to da Silva and Retallack, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Deleuze's writing on painting, and Fred Moten. We will then turn to poetic commentary across disciplines (that is, investigations of the poetics of literature, music, visual art), and poetic thought in and as poetry, considering, for example, Kamau Brathwaite's M/R, Robert Duncan's H.D. Book, the novels of Nathaniel Mackey. ... Since the seminar proposes poetics as inseparability of inquiry | practice, the final assignment will demand an experiment. We will discuss the institutional state/status of what participants will have made.