Emily R. Daniel writer & vocalist
Course Description
U.S. Revolutionary Poetics: The Art of Resistance explores the intersection of poetry and social change, considering how poets throughout history have wielded language as a tool for resistance, liberation, and revolution. This six-week course examines various forms of poetry from a range of social movements, linguistic strategies, songwriting, visual art, and the role of identity in shaping artistic expression. Students will analyze works by renowned poets whose work has come from or been proliferated by social movements and engage in creative workshops to hone their own artistic voice as agents of change. Through critical inquiry, creative exploration, and collaborative discussion, participants will deepen their understanding of the transformative power of poetry and other art forms in challenging dominant narratives, amplifying marginalized voices, and envisioning alternative futures. This course is designed for students passionate about poetry, art, activism, and social justice, seeking to discover the expansive power of poetry to provide hope and engage with, resist, and re-imagine the pressing issues of our time.
"Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before."
Course Format
We will meet once weekly and each class will be structured around lecture, discussion of assigned readings, creative workshops, and student presentations.
Assessment
Students will submit a total of five (5) critical analyses, reflections, or original poems inspired by the assigned readings each week. As this course only meets six times, attendance is expected and active participation in each class will be part of student assessment and success in the course. Each student will submit one poem for workshop during our course. Students will complete a project requiring them to re-frame their own resistance poem into protest art, generating a protest sign/poster, a social media post, a song, or a video and present to the class on our last day.
For their final project, students will select one U.S. social movement and write a six-page paper analyzing the art which came from or was/is associated with their selected movement. This project will require research, proper citations, and critical analysis of the role poetry and other art forms played in movement building. Students will consider the staying power of resistance art and how successive social movements have drawn from art inspired by previous movements (e.g.; What artistic remnants from the Civil Rights Movement have been used by the Black Lives Matter movement? How has poetry and art from Feminist movements been highlighted by modern Reproductive Justice movements?).