In class we were talking about the possibility of other universes and how each one would change based on each decision one makes. That being said, you and I are very different people and so each of my decisions create a new universe for each decision I make and each decision you make creates a […]
Tucked away on the eighth floor of the library is the Marketing and Communications department. There, several people work hard at sending out information regarding campus events and stories that highlight students and alumni. One of those people is the editorial intern, who not only writes stories, but also grammar and spell checks various works […]
For my internship, I worked with Dr. David Voelker and the Voyageur magazine as an Executive Editorial Intern. Over the course of the semester, I built on my skills as an English major and gained some new ones such as Chicago Style citations and InCopy. But most importantly, for the first time in my life, […]
Throughout the course of this class and the novels we have read, I noticed a recurring theme among the experimental techniques used by the novels’ authors. It stemmed from the questions asked in class-how is this novel experimental? How is this other novel also experimental, and how do the experimental techniques differ from of complement […]
I’ve really enjoyed trying out all the different projects with very different novels, even with them sharing the theme of experimentation. It was a mind-boggling experience between unconventional novels and projects requiring students to look at text beyond what the writer intended. I would definitely recommend doing the projects again, even with conventional books, because […]
Experimental approaches to interpreting literature can provide unique interpretations of that literature, and this is especially true when the literature in question is classified as experimental. What’s The Point? I work part-time at the Home Depot and I try to include my co-workers with the projects I do in class. I’ve shown several of them […]
I ended up gaining a lot from this class, and I think the format had a lot to do with that. The project suite was very helpful. Because the works we read were experimental in nature, interpreting them in a more experimental context was valuable. Sometimes interpreting literature can be a little predictable. That’s not […]
I signed up for this course entirely on a whim — in avoidance of a dreaded Shakespeare class, but an attractive aspect of this class was its foreign nature in that it was “experimental.” I had never considered reading things experimental, so this was a new experience that almost guaranteed it to be challenging. For […]
Whether or not the order of projects my group did were successful or not, the class itself definitely was a success. Going into the class I definitely did not expect what I got out of the class when I walked in that first day. I took the class initially because I knew it would be interesting […]
I was really excited this semester to be in a class with a focus on learning about a text in unconventional ways. A course where we get to tweet in class, and the teacher is totally fine with it? Sign me up! I realized pretty quickly that the projects we were assigned were, in fact, […]
This semester, the division into groups was very helpful in ensuring that projects did not get boring—primarily because no two groups were going to have a similar outcome—and by allowing groups to evaluate their own personal successes, without comparing them to that of another group. As a group, we had varying levels of success throughout […]
Oh man, how do I begin this. ………….I felt like above dude most of this class First off, I must say that for not working with anyone in my group before besides Jenny the projects went fairly smooth. For the most part everyone contributed equally. I’m still not sure if I even liked half of […]
Let’s start with the obvious: this class was awesomesauce. No, I’m not just saying that in hopes of earning a good grade. Frankly, I don’t much care about the grade; I’m being all postmodernist, throwing the conventional obsession with grades out the window, and just being glad for the experience. And you know what else? […]
For the final reflection for this course we were asked to talk about a number of things regarding the projects we took on, namely if we liked them, how well they did or didn’t work, and something we learned because of an insight brought on by the projects. I’m going to start by saying that, […]
Taking a course on experimental literature, I expected to encounter books with unfamiliar formatting, interesting graphic components, and quirky content (like footnotes and appendices). What I did not expect were experimental assignments. I am comfortable with traditional essays, so completing projects with components that were unfamiliar to me was pretty intimidating. And while some projects […]
Our group was fortunate in the line up of projects with book subjects. It’s actually a lot more difficult to pinpoint projects that did not lend themselves to highlighting and analyzing thematic aspects of their literary counterparts. Specifically, I’d like to explore how the following projects worked and did not: House of Leaves as a […]
When I first started this class, I was thrilled when I saw the variety of books that the syllabus had to offer. I paged through all of them, read all of the synopses, and got more excited as the semester grew nearer. I was even more intrigued when I found out that instead of writing […]
Overall my personal experience with the project suite was positive and helped me connect with the books in different ways than when I was just reading them to myself. I also found that I got much more from the projects that I helped work on rather than ones that people in other groups put together. […]
Before taking this course, I had never really tried to interpret text through anything other than thought, discussion, and writing. These projects really opened my eyes to different interpretations of the experimental novels that we read than I would have ever had by just writing or talking about them. One project that I really thought […]
I enjoyed all the projects a lot, and I think the books we had fit perfectly with their respective projects, which might not have been the case had we been assigned in another group and had the books and projects line up differently. I was glad I got to help out with each of them […]
“Experimental approaches to interpreting literature can provide unique interpretations of that literature, and this is especially true when the literature in question is classified as experimental.” From my experiences in this class, the statement above reads true in my mind. Experimental approaches broaden the spectrum of unique interpretations that can come out of a piece […]
Of all the projects done in our class this semester, I would have to say the one project that contributed the most insight into any book would have to be the mapping project. I could see many other individuals answering that the mapping project provided no extra insight into the book, but I feel that […]
I believe that working on these projects all semester was so helpful along with reading experimental fiction. Since experimental writing styles are so different from the traditional styles we, as English Majors, usually read, it was very helpful to be able to see the plot, characters, and themes in a more accessible and digital way. […]
I have not really had much experience with experimental literature until I took this class. This semester has been a huge insight to me, the books we read and the projects we did for them had me take a deeper look into what I was reading. Taking a experimental approach to interpreting the literature we […]
Near the close of last semester and the end of the Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop, I asked Dr. Rybak about the books he would be teaching for this semester’s Experimental Fiction class. The adjective “experimental” can accumulate odd and frightening connotations in an imagination married to British classics and their complementary scholarly articles, and I […]
After finishing these projects, I felt I had a better understanding toward the novels because all the projects that I’ve done with my group fit along with the themes really well for interpretations. I don’t know if it was just luck, but using the programs provided such as Audacity, Google Earth and Prezi worked well […]
Final Reflection Assignment For each of the books we’ve read this semester, I was painfully aware of how I had previously had superficial understanding of language theory, and this course made me want to know more about how language evolves. Before this course I understood in theory what these great thinkers like Derrida, Wittgenstein, and […]
Throughout the semester we have encountered numerous experimental texts. At times these texts were challenging, and honestly made me want to pull my hair out, there were moments where I found myself completely lost with no hope in sight that I might ever see the light of day again. However, it was an exciting and […]
In an experimental fiction class, conventional projects and papers seem out of place. After all, what’s the point of taking a conventional approach to such a diverse area of fiction as experimental? The best way to approach experimental fiction is with an experimental approach to projects. Instead of having to go to the library to […]
When literature is classified as experimental, it only follows that one might want to interpret the literature in an experimental way. This could indeed lead to unique interpretations of the work. Such was the case with the English 331 Major American Prose Fiction class Professor Chuck Ryback PhD conducted in Spring of 2013, or as […]