Creative communications positions as foundational that any project, whether of writing, video, architecture, teaching materials or rhetorical presentation, needs a deep understanding and infusion of creative values, rooted in creative studies, to let it move its audience into an unforgettable and powerful emotional impact. Creative communications, after all, does not take for granted the beauty -- and thus, the urgent study and practice -- of connecting with those we do not know, across cultures and languages, ages and tastes, and even connecting better with those we do know well.

Drawing from ENGL7512, this course takes a special angle of connection, construction, and creative communications as an act of creative “happiness.” Happiness offers a 21st century field of inquiry; new interdisciplinary approaches are important for studying closely and at length how our creative projects become communicatively “memorable,” that is, of lasting and felt impact for our audiences.

This course will culminate in the production of a powerful and creative perspective in communications and narration for the life story of your own project or design, through small guided tutorial and workshop groups. Students will learn to build a higher register of “happiness” in audiences, across languages and cultures. This capstone course, therefore, will bring your own project new frames of creative communications and development, exploring questions of ideals, rituals, and play with regard to human relationships and societies. In the capstone process, students are invited to explore their personal vulnerability or resistance to certain “master plots” and conventions of their field, to challenge familiar and often unchallenged ideologies, and to become powerful players in their own acts of building and constructing creative communication that lasts through time.