ENGL 377

I’d like to encourage students one more time to submit their work–whatever the genre–to the departmental writing contests. I also want to remind everybody that the submission deadline is this Friday, April 30 at 5:00 p.m.

There are categories for fiction, poetry, literary analysis, general essay, playwriting, professional writing, journalism, and more. Faculty, please urge your students to take part.

Work should be submitted online through the English Department website. The link is as follows:

In the film _Helvetica_, a number of speakers made reference to how fonts are political, particularly in the 1960s. In groups of two or three, I’d like you to analyze document font selections from the MSU Radical Papers Archive. How is/isn’t font selection and use visibly political?

MSU Student Activism (circa 1960s): http://www2.lib.msu.edu/branches/dmc/digital.jsp?coll=4

MSU Radical Papers Archive (1900s – 1960s): http://www2.lib.msu.edu/branches/dmc/digital.jsp?coll=1

Analyze at least two of these documents with your peer and discuss them in relationship to the film and readings.

I’d like you to make some connections between the Helvetica film, the readings, and broader ideas about rhetoric and typography. What kind of rhetorical work does a particular font do (choose one and investigate)? What are the connections between font design, use, medium, and culture? Please hand in a two page Googledocs paper with references to the readings, film and any other outside sources.

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/ancient-scotland-written-language.html

Hi everyone,

I’ve created a class flickr group here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1424082@N22/

In class today we will add the group to our flickr profiles, search flickr for examples, and tag an image to share with the group. I’ll also share the PDF files for homework, as well as homework questions for next week. Best, Jim