Creative Writing through History

location_on Location: Burlington B

(Links to papers / posters are embargoed until 4/7)

All times in Eastern Time Zone

• assignment_ind Agustin, H. “ archipelagic apparitions ”
  I created a documentary poetics zine titled archipelagic apparitions that explores different threads of diaspora through the compilation of historical and personal artifacts. In M. NourbeSe Philip’s words, I tried to “fracture, fragment, [and] put language back together again—trying to decontaminate it.” I intertwined five thematic threads in this project: (1) historical investigation of the relationship between Western Imperialism and the Filipino Diaspora; (2) my family’s immigration/diaspora narrative; (3) how other Asian writers have worked through issues of absence, distance, and disconnection; (4) letters to ghosts, to those that are both there and not there, to that which is both there and not there, and (5) Photographs of ghosts (distances, absences, haunted spaces, haunted forms). This project is an extended and elaborate visual and literary work.
• assignment_ind Milkovich, J. “ History as Artistic Inspiration: Playwriting ”
  This presentation demonstrates how history can be used to inspire the artist and, specifically, in this case, playwriting. The presentation will show three scenes from my play Memento Mori and will discuss the historical research required to create these scenes. The play focuses on important events and city life during the Protestant Reformation in Germany and ends with the terrible sack of Rome in 1527. It follows the lives of historical and fictional characters through the development of the Holy Roman Emperor’s war with the papacy. Historical fiction that is deeply informed by true historical events and people can help further the study of history by revealing to the reader/audience an event, era, or person which they had previously no knowledge of. This kind of fiction can act as an invitation of sorts to expand on what is being studied within the field of history currently.