Just what is the logic behind teaching composition with such rapid technological advances which has created a pedagogical dilemma for educators Geoffrey Sirc asked? In addition, what sorts of formal and material concerns guide a newly-mediated pedagogical practice? Consider box logic. A box is a container used for storing and exhibiting one’s most passionately cherished items. In terms of transcending essayist prose, it holds all its conventions/restrictions and impediments. The box offers a grammar which could prove useful in guiding our classroom practice in light of rapidly shifting compositional media; it allows both textual pleasure, as students archive their personal collections of text and imagery, and formal practice in learning the compositional skills that seem increasingly important in contemporary culture. Text is the box, and the author is the collector. The logic of the box is discussed in three specific scenes of history boxes which include:
- Joseph Cornell, one of the true poets of American art, and one who made the box his artistic genre of choice.
- Walter Benjamin, unpacking the boxes of books that made up his personal library.
- George Maciunas, the founder of Fluxus, an international art movement that among other things, relied on box technology to curate and disseminate creative work.
