Manifesto!

For your first writing exercise of the second semester, you're going to have the opportunity to create your own manifesto, either as a solo composition or in collaboration as a group of two or three. Use Wilde's "Preface" to The Picture of Dorian Gray as one model: Wilde's provocative and paradoxical aphorisms can be seen as a "manifesto of aestheticism," and this model was taken up and pursued with a passion by a number of modern artists and writers (see Marinetti, Pound, Loy, and Lewis). You or your group should identify yourselves as the vanguard of a "movement," although it doesn't have to be built upon an especially serious or dire set of issues. For authenticity, you might add an "-ist" to your group's name: if you want to hail the superiority of the cashew over every other variety of nut, for example, you might confront readers with "The Cashewist Manifesto." 

Your manifesto should draw directly on the examples of modernist manifestos we've read for today's class (and Wilde's "Preface") as models of the form. Imitate the style of their sentences, the format of their assertions, and even the typeface and arrangement of words (see Lewis's Vorticist Manifesto or the reproduction of Loy's Feminist Manifesto). It should include a minimum of 10 distinct assertions or aphorisms or statements of provocation. Note how all of these manifestos share a desire to break decisively with the past--they are all "revolutionary" in some form, and the affirmation of the movement is always framed in terms of a rejection of a stilted or outdated or obsolete past. All manifestos in this sense could be described as "futurist": they all share the posture of hailing an imminent future at the expense of the exhausted past. Think of what issue or set of issues you would like to sound off on, in such a forceful and decisive voice.

If you collaborate, all members of the group should sign the manifesto, and all members should contribute assertions and aphorisms. You can edit the final draft together, to produce the strongest, most uncompromising, authoritative assertions you can create. Please have fun with this assignment. The final draft is due (via Canvas) by the end of the day Friday, January 17, and you will have the opportunity to share your work with the class. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!