Art & Identity in New Orleans

Your final project for this course should be both a creative and analytical exercise, using our reading and discussion of literary texts as well as our examination of the ways in which history, place, and culture contribute to shaping individual and collective identity.

The precise focus and approach of your final project is up to you, and the following list of ideas is simply meant to propel you to consider how you might apply your own interests and ideas to this assignment. You should receive explicit approval from me for your project. The sooner you do so, the more time you’ll have to conduct any necessary research and embark upon the creative aspect of the assignment.

We will conduct workshops on your in-progress projects between November 16 and December 2. The final draft of your project is due on the final day of class, December 14. Depending on the nature of your project, the final draft should include a blog post that presents the entire project, offers links to the final project, or conveys in a detailed manner the nature and scope of the project.

Your project will be assessed both on its ambition and its execution, so work toward selecting a project that will be challenging but for which you have sufficient enthusiasm, experience, and skill to complete it. For example, a cycle of art songs based on  one of the literary texts or a particular character or historical event would be a wonderful project, but only if you have some experience in composing and performing music.

Final project ideas:

Select a secondary or marginal character from one of the texts — Kate or Mercer or Binx’s great aunt or Binx’s mother in The Moviegoer, for example, or Mademoiselle Reisz or the children’s nanny or the young lovers or the old lady with the rosary in The Awakening — and write a scene or short story from the perspective of that character.

Write a coda or epilogue to one of the texts, imagining and presenting events after the conclusion of the work.

Write a short story, a scene from a play, or a sequence of poems based on some aspect of New Orleans history or culture.

Write a story, scene, or poetry based on some aspect of the history and culture of a place that is or has been your home or that you know well.

Update a portion of one of the texts we’ve read in order to examine how a change in the historical setting leads to changes in character, action, and theme.

Compose, reimagine, or remix a piece of music that arises from and conveys a particular place, culture, and identity.

Create works of visual art that arise from and convey a particular place, culture, and identity.

Create and perform works of dance or theater that arise from and convey a particular place, culture, and identity.

Catalog and annotate a collection of imagined artifacts that arise from and convey a particular place, culture, and identity.

Research, catalog, and annotate a collection of music that arises from and convey a particular place, culture, and identity.