| Unit name | Intermedia Encounters in Poetry |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HISP30104 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Kosick |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Why is this unit important?
In the 1960s artist Dick Higgins announced that ‘the best work being produced today seems to fall between media’. His argument addressed the arts in general, and poetry specifically, which was no longer a self-contained genre, but increasingly collaborative and ‘intermedia’. Higgins’ categories of intermedia poetry included visual poetry, sound poetry, and postal poetry (among others) and in the years since, poets have continued to develop innovative work that fuses poetry with other media. This unit will survey important developments in intermedia poetry. It will explore the transnational and multilingual communities that contributed to intermedia poetry at the end of the twentieth century through the present day, centring in particular innovations driven by Latin American poets and artists and their movements—aesthetic and actual—around the Atlantic. It will challenge students to reflect on boundaries between media and to consider how aesthetic innovations disrupt academic categories of disciplinarity and reception.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
This unit will build on and consolidate skills students will bring from a range of disciplines, including literary, visual, and cultural studies. It will be an opportunity to investigate the interface between creative work and critical reflection as we will both read poets who auto-theorise their own practices and cultivate opportunities for creative praxis in the classroom. Materials will include multilingual poetic productions, but readings will be made accessible in translation as necessary. The Unit will offer students in HiPLA the chance to deepen their existing linguistic skills and expose themselves to additional languages, including modes of communication beyond natural language (for example visual and material ‘languages’)
An overview of content
In this unit, students will engage with a variety of intermedia poetic practices from the twentieth century through the present day. These will include examples from poets and artists working in North and South America as well as the UK and Europe. Students will also read a variety of critical and theoretical reflections on poetry and its relationship to other media or modes of practice. Alongside readings, students will have the opportunity to cultivate their own creative practices and skills in critical reflection.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit
Students will increase their knowledge of intermedia poetic practices in the Atlantic region from the twentieth century forward, gain exposure to new languages, and reconsider how poetry fits within the broader arts. They will develop their creative skills and cultivate independent thinking and practice. They will reflect on their own learning and work collaboratively to communicate their ideas across disciplinary boundaries.
Learning Outcomes
Following this unit students will be able to:
1. Demonstrate their knowledge of intermedia poetry via a series of creative and critical tasks.
2. Collaborate with their peers to challenge inherited structures of aesthetic practice and academic reflection.
3. Develop their skills in independent research, evaluation, analysis, and poetic making.
4. Formulate independent and evidence-based judgements and express these clearly and persuasively in their academic writing.
Learning will take the form of student-led discussion, applied practice with intermedia poetry, self-reflective analysis, inquiry-driven research, engagement with online pedagogical and creative tools, and peer-review.
Students will participate in weekly seminars, presenting their knowledge of the materials under examination and responding to peer-driven discussions, which will support their exploratory learning. Students will submit weekly discussion questions on Blackboard, which will provide opportunities to generate open-ended questions in preparation for the assessed research. Students will participate in peer-review workshopping to develop and hone their assessment plans prior to submission. Students will have an opportunity to make their own poetic creations, in preparation for assessed creative-critical reflections.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
1 x 2000-word essay (40%). [ILOs 1-4]
1 x 3000-word reflective portfolio (60%) [ILOs 1,3, and 4]
When assessment does not go to plan
When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the form or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are normally confirmed by the School shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the academic year.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. HISP30104).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
