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tags: course support
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# 20220118 - EXPOS20Cole

## Course description
**1984: Orwell’s World and Ours**
When George Orwell wrote 1984, the year that gave the book its title and setting lay 35 years ahead. Today, it is more than 35 years in the past, and yet Orwell’s prophecies are as relevant as ever. 1984 has surged to the top of the best-sellers chart three times in the last decade, always at moments when Orwell’s fiction and our reality seemed eerily similar: in 2013, after Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA’s secret mass surveillance program; in 2017, when a Trump spokesperson debuted the concept of “alternative facts” to an incredulous public; and in 2021, following the insurrection at the US Capitol and then-President Trump’s suspension from Facebook and Twitter. Even if you’ve never read the book yourself, you’ve probably heard – maybe even used – some of its iconic phrases: Big Brother, Thought Police, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, or 2+2=5. Orwell invented all of this because he wanted to give his readers a handle on what was happening in the world. Much has changed since then, including the fall of the totalitarian regimes that inspired the novel, and yet it seems we still cannot put Orwell’s premonitions behind us. In this course, we examine the enduring significance of 1984 from three different angles. In the first unit, we’ll grapple with the text itself, close-reading key passages from the novel and using them to explore the underappreciated nuances of Orwell’s masterpiece. In the second unit, we’ll consider the text in its historical context, drawing evidence from Orwell’s non-fiction writing to add depth and sophistication to our analysis. In the third unit, we’ll consider whether and how Orwell’s novel illuminates our future. You’ll have the opportunity to pursue independent research on key Orwellian themes such as authoritarianism, post-truth, censorship, and surveillance, in order to see how the arguments of contemporary scholars and thought leaders have updated Orwell’s insights for the twenty-first century.

## Meeting notes
* He knows about Lamont's resources, his students made use of them last term.
* Interested in a session to talk about the more conceptual work they are doing - taking academic research and making it accessible / engaging. looking at examples/models together.
* He is not sure if he should continue giving them freedom or reel in to a few mediums that work really well.
* When the medium goes really far beyond the realm of academic communication (like a Twitter-based performance art piece or instagram campaign), it can be difficult. Think about where informal education/non-academic communication happens in the wild and target those mediums.
* Mediums to target:
* Posters
* Public education campaign - to make it work you really have to think about your audience, what you are sharing with them, have to think about it a bit more deeply than students did last term
* Podcast

## How we can help
* Workshop touring capstone mediums (see notes about a possible theme in the third bullet below)
* Can set up a workshop where there are stations that introduce them to a few mediums
* Think about the rhetorical moves that are possible
* Help them think about what goes in to producing that thing so that they aren't going in blind.
* Make a reel of dystopian footage + print out skills. Think about how/why you'd move into another medium.
* **Unit 3 - Photo compare/contrast**
* Find a single image from the news today and talk about how it relates to the content of the course.
* Start to develop the skills they will need for the final capstone.
* **Create a video time-capsule** - It would be very cool to help students think about how to craft a future dystopia that makes a social commentary on the present.
* Learn a little bit about what was going on in the US with college students when 1984 was published.
* What were they thinking about / concerned about.
* What message would they want to convey to students 50 years in the future.
* What view or ideas would they share.
* What questions would they ask? what concentrations would there be? would there be an EXPOS?
* (the opening of the handsmaid's tale occurs in the harvard gyms.)

## Next steps
- [x] We are holding April 5 and 12. Decide which date.
- [ ] Send us any examples you'd like us to reference.
- [ ] Send us any models you'd like students to emulate.
- [ ] Send us the assignment prompt.