Project 2:
Travels and Encounters

Texts:
"Poems on the Naming of Places" and Guide to the District of the Lakes--Wordsworth
Song of the Open Road--Whitman
On the Road --Kerouac
"Tourism and the Semiotics of Nostalgia"--John Frow

Purpose: For this assignment, students will produce a hypertext project in two parts that explores the relation between inner landscapes, the outer social sphere, and "Nature." Using the groundwork laid in the first project, students follow Wordsworth, Whitman, and Kerouac "on the road," where the authors seek spaces to resonate with their visions, the hallucination of desire onto the landscape, the dramatization of the encounter between the human and the natural and social world(s).

Part One:

 In the first part of the assignment (approximately 700 words), you will answer the following questions about two of the texts we have discussed in class. Pick from the following problems to be worked out.
  • Encounter as Conquest

  • Encounter as Re-defining the Individual

  • Encounter as the Meeting of a Real and a Virtual World

Your analysis should be based on at least one "encounter" from each text. Write in essay form and use a close reading of the texts (i.e. your interpretation should come from the analysis of passages from the texts).

Part Two:

 In the second part of this assignment, use the problem you addressed in part one and rewrite the encounter using a different landscape. The landscape you chose should come from any of the authors we have studied this semester including: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, M. Shelly, Whitman, and Kerouac. Keep the same problem as in part one (one of the three listed) and keep the same type of encounter (conquest, re-defining the individual, real and virtual world). Change the landscape from the original to one taken from another text. You should attempt to write in the style of the author who has the encounter.

For example, imagine Wordsworth's Guide describing a landscape from On the Road, or imagine one of Kerouac's encounters in a Blake landscape.

Finally, your project should be in the form of a hypertext document to be published on the Web. You should use images relevant to your project and place links to move the reader between the different screens of your project. *In both part one and part two, use a variety of images and links intelligently by 1) integrating the links and images with the text and 2) using links and images a part of the encounter the reader has with your essay.

Schedule: Group 2 will present to the class on how to do the project on Monday, 10/14. You must have a rough draft for workshopping on Wednesday, 10/16. The final project is due, online, linked to your homepage, with a hardcopy printout to be handed in on Friday, 10/18.