Exquisite Corpse: Studio Art-Based Writing Practices in the Academy

Out of the 1920s Surrealist art studios emerged the exquisite corpse, a collaboratively drawn body made whole through a series of disjointed parts whose relevance today is the subject of Exquisite Corpse: Studio Art-Based Writing in the Academy. This collection draws from the processes and pedagogies of artists and designers to reconcile disparate discourses in rhetoric and composition pertaining to 3Ms (multimodal, multimedia, multigenre), multiliteracies, translingualism, and electracy. With contributions from a diverse range of scholars, artists, and designers, the chapters in this collection expand the conversation to a broader notion of writing and composing in the 21^st century that builds upon traditional notions of composing but also embraces newer and nontraditional forms. In the section devoted to process, readers will find connections between art, design, and academic writing that may encourage them to incorporate nontraditional strategies and styles into their own writing. In the section devoted to pedagogy, readers will encounter art-based writing projects and activities that highlight the importance of interdisciplinary work as students continue to compose in ways that are more than solely alphabetic. Both sections provide insight into experimental process, inquiry-based work, play, and risk-taking. They also reveal what failure and success mean today in the composition classroom. Throughout the collection, readers will encounter a variety of stylized critical essays, poetic vignettes, lavish contemporary visual art, 20th-century Surrealist exquisite corpse drawings, and candid snapshots from the artists’ own studios.

Contributors include John Dunnigan, Brian Gaines, Felix Burgos, Meghan Nolan, Derek Owens, Jason Palmeri, Christopher Rico, Jody Shipka, S. Andrew Stowe, Vittoria S. Rubino, Tara Roeder, Gregory L. Ulmer, and K. A. Wisniewski.

"Inspired by the Surrealist parlor game that fosters play, randomness, and collaboration in the creative process, Exquisite Corpse: Studio Art-Based Writing in the Academy breathes fresh air into traditional pedagogy in the disciplines of writing, art- making, and writing about art. Its essays advocate playfulness, fancy, collaboration, collage, improvisation, and intersecting genres to upend traditional practices of academic art-making and criticism with the goals of richer creativity, inclusivity, and social justice. Reading it has made me want to try all sorts of new things in my writing classes." —James Lough, Savannah College of Art and Design.

"As I made my way through this wonderfully diverse collection of essays exploring the elements and implications of art-based processes and art-based pedagogy, I (as reader, writer, and teacher) could feel my juices stir. Oh, the possibles. While this collection focuses on processes and pedagogy, the project as a whole subverts the traditional and skillfully sidesteps method to reveal ways of doing/teaching composition that inspire. This collection, as the editors suggest, “values play, collaboration, community, imagination and artistic innovation,” resonating the Deleuzian ‘difference.’ Each chapter reminds us that what it means to teach writing is to help students make the connection (between writing and life)—that writing like ‘difference’ comes first and above all, in the words of Deleuze, from “the internal explosive force that life carries with it.” Exquisite Corpse: Studio Art–Based Writing in the Academy is indeed exquisite. —Jacqueline Preston, Utah Valley University

Kate Hanzalik is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition at Syracuse University. Her work about electracy and art-based writing has appeared in journals such as Computers and Composition Online, Textshop Experiments, Itineration, and Journal of Writing in Creative Practice.

Nathalie Virgintino is Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center at Concordia College - NY. She recently completed her PhD in Writing Studies at St. John's University; her dissertation focuses on improvisation, art-based and studio-based practices in Writing Studies.