The term "anthology" derives from the Greek word "anthologia" which means to gather or collect flowers. The term has been extended to describe literary or artistic collections, so we now think of an anthology as a collection of works (poems, stories, artwork, songs) brought together into one place.
This course will practice what I'll call "anthologics" - a method of bringing together a conversation of various texts, arguments, and voices and then entering into that conversation. Upon choosing a particular topic, students will spend the semester compiling their anthology and writing the preface and/or introduction to that text. This anthology will be a way of presenting readers with a "conversation" about a particular topic. The main goal of the anthologic method is to understand that we are always entering ongoing conversations and that it behooves us to understand those conversations before participating.
Reading and writing assignments in this course will all build toward students' anthology assignment. Students will complete short writing assignments that summarize and analyze texts they'd like to anthologize and longer writing assignments that will make up the introductory text they are writing. Since we are designing a book, we will also discuss design issues. To this end, we'll ask questions such as: What will the anthology look like? How will it be organized? Who is the audience? What publisher might be interested in putting out such an anthology?
Image Credit: ["Hawaii Flower Bouquet" by R.J. Malfalfa]
