Spring 2019: “Mystery’s Agent & Me”
This course reprised previous iterations of my detective fiction and psychological thriller class. Assignments included multimodal essays and the development of an interactive “archival” mystery, digital narratives constructed using Twine. Texts include: Edgar Allan Poe, Patricia Highsmith, Jorge Luis Borges, Chester Himes, Raymond Chandler, Film selections (Bandersnatch, Gone Girl, Strangers on a Train, Bullitt, Drive, Vertigo), Serial (NPR), Videogames (Oxenfree, Her Story).
Fall 2018: “Mapping Nature”
This course was designed around archives-based and place-based learning methods, critical thinking about maps and networks of information, and the curation of electronic exhibits using remediated archival material to analyze cultural information. Locations themselves are types of complex images, formed through various observations, perspectives, and experiential information; Maps are subjective instruments, not impartial, and their measurements, inputs, and outputs are often creative interpretations of critical data. The course readings, archival materials, and assignments engage with the features of cartography and included a look at experiential and psychological “maps.” Texts include: Jorge Luis Borges “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” Annie Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Italo Calvino Invisible Cities, Kenneth Rexroth One Hundred Poems from the Chinese, Eula Biss “Letter to Mexico,” Thomas Jefferson Notes on the State of Virginia, Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur Letters from an American Farmer, John Muir My Summer in the Sierra, Film selections Werner Herzog Grizzly Man, Videogames (Geoguessr, Gone Home), StoryMaps (Esri.com), Library of Congress Archives (loc.gov), UGA Special Collections Library.
Spring 2018: “Mystery’s Agent & Me”
Themed around the genre of detective fiction and psychological thrillers, this course partnered with the UGA Digital Humanities program to offer praxis credit toward the Undergraduate Digital Humanities Certificate. Students read, analyze, and interpret print and electronic resources such as traditional fiction (novels, short stories), podcasts, video games, film, and comics. These formats provide rich possibilities for critical engagement of historic and contemporary psychological literature. Assignments include reading quizzes, labs on media engagement (film and audio), a standard critical essay on a written text, a multimodal essay on film/media, and a group project using Twine software (twinery.org) to develop an interactive narrative hypertext mystery using archival material from the Special Collections.
Fall 2017 ENGL 1101 (UGA): Walking to tell the tale
This course was themed around location, place, and travel to consider methods of composition. Readings included essays on travel by Henry James and Arthur Symons, as well as a V.S. Naipaul narrative, the web browser game Geoguessr, and Robert Frank’s photo essays.
Summer 2017 ENGL 1102 SOUP Course (GT): Agent of the Multiverse, The Second
An online hybrid course in multimodal composition, themed on the sf genre. Class included standard essays, blog writing, and an archival project documenting classic sf aesthetics.
Spring 2017 ENGL 1102 (GT): Agent of the Multiverse
Themed around the sf genre, this course in composition included standard essays, designed blog spaces, and a group hypertext narrative utilizing the criterial features of the genre.
Fall 2016 ENGL 1102 (GT): Mystery’s Agent & me, an unlikely sleuth, part ii
Second iteration of this course using the detective fiction and psychological thriller genres to navigate complex themes; included implementation of the Ivan Allen, Jr Mayoral Records (1962-1970) and GT Archives in historically-driven hypertext projects.
Spring 2016 ENGL 1102 (GT): Mystery’s Agent & me, an unlikely sleuth, part i
Inaugural edition of this course using the detective fiction and psychological thriller genres to discuss methods of composition and rhetoric.
Fall 2015 ENGL 1102 (GT): Folklore and Videogames
A co-taught, combined multimodal composition class looking at mythology and linguistics in videogames. Assignments featured the use of the MAME Cabinet to facilitate classic gaming research as well as game design with Inform 7.
Spring 2015 ENGL 1102 (GT): Narrative in Videogames
This co-taught, combined sections of multimodal composition featured games theory and the study of narrative in electronic texts. Capstone projects included game design with Inform 7.
Fall 2014 ENGL 1102 (GT): The Species of Memory
This course used the theme of memory to explore issues in composition. Included readings in Frances Yates, W.G. Sebald, and Andrei Tarkosvy’s Solaris. Capstone project was in film design: students wrote, directed, and edited short films given criteria in narrative and sound design.
