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Aesthetics [clear]
| Title | Offering | Standing | Credits | Credits | When | F | W | S | Su | Description | Preparatory | Faculty | Days of Week | Multiple Standings | Start Quarters |
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Anatomy of Abjection
Laura Citrin and Shaw Osha (Flores) aesthetics art history cultural studies gender and women's studies psychology sociology |
Program | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | SSpring | “These gestures, which aim to establish matter as fact, are all associated with making something dirty. Here is a paradox: a fact is more purely defined if it is not clean….the truth of things is best read in refuse.”-Roland Barthes on Cy Twombly In Julia Kristeva’s (1982), she introduced the concept of the , that which is situated outside the symbolic order, that which breaks down the boundaries between self and other, and that which is repellent and simultaneously desirous. Utilizing the abject as a rich source for aesthetic and psychological inquiry into the body and embodiment, we will explore the ways that seemingly opposing dualisms—such as normal/dysfunctional, inside/outside, order/disorder, dirty/clean, raw/cooked, black/white, citizen/alien —function in our lives. These dualisms will enable a discussion of such social psychological themes as cultural alienation, marginalization, stigma, disgust, purity, and moralization. Through the study of art, visual culture, and art history, we will work to translate a larger narrative on these themes into material form through visual art. The program will explore notions of epistemology (ways of knowing, ways of producing knowledge) and consider as a form of epistemology. Utilizing a social psychological approach, we will explore connections between the psychology of the individual and the larger historical, cultural, political and social context in which she resides (looking and seeing broadly); and utilizing an aesthetic/visual culture approach, we will examine art and art history via close reading (looking and seeing very closely). In this interdisciplinary program, all students will learn the fundamentals in 2D representation and figure drawing, as well as the fundamentals of social psychological research methodology. A final project will engage both practices/approaches by creating art that is informed by psychological research, and research that is informed by aesthetic/visual ways of seeing and knowing. Potential readings include: Julia Kristeva’s, ; Craig Houser, Leslie Jones, Simon Taylor, and Jack Ben-Levi’s ; William Miller's ; social psychological experiments by Paul Rozin on disgust; Freud's ; Sander Gilman's ; Mary Douglas' ; Victoria Bynum’s, ; and Barbara Creed’s, | the arts, cultural studies, and social sciences. | Laura Citrin Shaw Osha (Flores) | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | ||||
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Art, Time and Narrative
Shaw Osha (Flores) and Marilyn Freeman aesthetics art history cultural studies media studies visual arts writing |
Program | FR ONLYFreshmen Only | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | WWinter | "The wall between artist and audience is very thin, all you have to do is walk through."- PICA on Portland’s Time-Based Art Festival Contemporary art considers maker and audience, it can be materially based and conceptually based, and it can be multi-media and interdisciplinary. How do the various practices relate and inform us as both makers and audience? In this program we will consider the relationship of drawing and writing to other media as a means of examining basic ideas around time and narrative. What is our relationship as art makers and viewers to our perceptions of time? This visual art and writing program will explore concepts of time and artistic practices with references to temporal space by developing foundational skills in critical thinking, drawing and 2-D art, creative non-fiction and analytical writing, audio recording, basic photography and multimedia editing in the context of contemporary visual culture and art history. We will use personal narratives to explore time, memory, and perspective through words and images; and we will consider the relation of moving and still images, drawings and sound and what happens when we confound the senses by juxtaposing them. The context of art history and critical theory will be integral to our inquiry. The curriculum will include studio practice, writing, workshops, lectures, readings, research, seminar, screenings, gallery and museum visits, multimedia production and presentations, and critiques. There will be one field trip each quarter to either Seattle or Portland. In fall quarter we will develop personal narratives in essay form and drawing. Students will be introduced to theories and practices relative to time- and process-based art. Fall quarter work will culminate in collaborative word/sound/image projects on everyday time. In winter quarter we will advance the study of relationships between art, time and narrative through a comprehensive integration of writing and drawing in the mode of graphic creative nonfiction. We will start working immediately on creative and research projects that will culminate in a final edition of works on paper and multimedia presentations. This quarter will include additional theory-based texts and figure drawing instruction as well as in-depth studio and writing workshop time. There will be an overnight trip to Portland for First Thursday gallery openings. This rigorous program is designed for students who are ready for an immersive college experience—academically, creatively, personally. Students are expected to join field trips and attend off-campus film screenings, to participate fully in all program activities, and to work about 40 hours per week including class time. | visual arts, media arts, creative and critical writing, cultural studies and art history. | Shaw Osha (Flores) Marilyn Freeman | Freshmen FR | Fall | |||
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Dada and Surrealism: Art as Life - Life as Art
Bob Haft and Marianne Bailey aesthetics art history literature visual arts Signature Required: Spring |
Program | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | WWinter | SSpring | – , Friedrich Nietzsche This program is designed for serious, advanced students with an interest in the artistic and literary movements of Dada and Surrealism. Like the Surrealists, you must have a strong work ethic and total commitment to our independent and group work; you must also be fearless in the face of disturbing and even dangerous ideas to which we will be exposed. Our goals are to introduce students to the depths of the creative, philosophical and psychological levels of the movements, and to show the profound effects that the movements and their continuing metamorphoses have had on the arts and humanities since the 1920s. In winter quarter we will study works of the Dadaists and of antecedents, beginning our studies with an intensive look at both the bourgeois society into which Dada erupted, “la Belle Epoque”, and the fringe thinkers and artists who had prepared the way. Dark Romantic poets longed for the Abyss, imaged a chaotic inner sea, and flirted with Mephistopheles. Friedrich Nietzsche unmasked God, Truth and Self. Painters and psychologists were obsessed with altered states of being, with madness, dream and hallucination. And thinkers spoke of Flux or Will as underlying all apparently solid constructs, from space and time to identity and language. We will look at the devastating blow World War I struck to humanism, to Western society, and to individual psyches of artists themselves, and at the weird birth of Dada, the wild child, in the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland, a quiet eye in a raging storm. To assist in our creative endeavors, students will learn the basics of drawing and photography. Students will work in small groups on projects that arise from our studies and will present or perform them at the quarter’s end. Spring quarter will find us concentrating our studies on Surrealism. We will explore the movement as a theory, state of mind, a gift and a world view. We will attempt to participate in that world view through studying, interpreting and critiquing works by the Surrealists, and by creating (both as individuals and groups) art objects and artistic spectacles. We will follow the Surrealist example by keeping dream journals and using them as a source for hypnagogic imagery. We will seek the Marvelous, as Surrealists did, expanding our concepts of the real. We will explore chance or synchronicity, attempt to live creatively, and to create ourselves/our lives as works of art. We will ask what values Surrealists created when commonly accepted values had been negated. We will delve into the relationship between ritual and Surrealist arts, drawing upon Surrealists’ reactions to medieval arts and to Haitian, West African and Pacific Island arts. Students will collaborate to create, print and edit Dadaist and Surrealist literary/artistic journals and performances. In addition, each student will be responsible for an individual research project of their choosing, exploring evidence of Surrealist tendencies in contemporary arts and thought. | 20th century art history and literature, drawing, photography, teaching, and the arts and humanities. | Bob Haft Marianne Bailey | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Winter | |||
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Doing Thinking: Working Wood, Crafting Ideas
Gillies Malnarich and Daryl Morgan aesthetics art history cultural studies education sociology visual arts |
Program | SO - SRSophomore - Senior | 8 | 08 | Evening and Weekend | FFall | WWinter | What do we know about how people learn "something" well? What is the relationship between thinking and doing, between the work of the mind and the work of the hand? Why does working through "the hard parts" move us closer to the elusive nature of mastery? How do novices become experts and apprentices turn into artisans? We will explore these questions in a learning environment which intentionally cross-fertilizes workshop and classroom learning experiences. The practice of begins with conceptualizing something and understanding its purpose. We choose a shape, size and structure; we select the material from which to make it; we assemble tools appropriate to the task. But, to actually make the object we must possess the necessary skills. requires a similar level of discipline: the process is as imaginative, intentional, and skill-based as . Intellectual work turns into tools for analysis. invites us to re-conceptualize our understanding of tools as instruments of both the hand and the mind as we address the program's overarching questions. Throughout the program, we will develop both our abilities to make things of consequence from wood and our abilities to work with ideas that matter in the world and that are worth understanding. | education and art-related fields. | Gillies Malnarich Daryl Morgan | Mon Wed Sat | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||
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Experiments in Theatre and Dance
Walter Grodzik and Robert Esposito aesthetics art history consciousness studies cultural studies dance linguistics literature somatic studies theater Signature Required: Spring |
Program | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | WWinter | SSpring | How do literal and non-representational gestures combine to create a unique poetics of action? How are emotions and ideas rendered in movement? How does the abstract design of space, time and motion support or subvert the spoken word? This two-quarter program will engage students in an active exploration of theater, movement and modern dance. Winter quarter will be devoted to building competency in separate modern dance and theater workshops, with two collaborative performance projects aimed at developing a final concert project in spring quarter. Students will continue building performance and collaborative skills through theater, movement and dance workshops, improvisation and composition in spring quarter. We will explore how verbal and non-verbal performance works contextualize and enhance each other by reading and analyzing various texts on theatre and dance. We will explore theories of dance theatre through structured solo and group improvisation, by creating original compositions, and in seminar discussions. Spring quarter will culminate in a public, collaborative concert. : Theater emphasis-20083 (Freshmen), 20084 (Sophomores-Seniors) Dance emphasis-20366 (Freshmen), 20367 (Sophomores-Seniors) | theatre, dance, and the performing arts. | Walter Grodzik Robert Esposito | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Winter | |||
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Individual Study: Interdisciplinary Projects, Arts, Consciousness Studies and Humanities
Ariel Goldberger aesthetics anthropology architecture art history classics communications community studies consciousness studies cultural studies field studies gender and women's studies geography international studies language studies leadership studies literature music outdoor leadership and education philosophy psychology queer studies religious studies sociology somatic studies theater visual arts writing Signature Required: Winter |
Contract | SO - SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | WWinter | Individual study offers students the opportunity to develop self-direction, to learn how to manage a personal project, to focus on unqiue combinations of subjects, and to pursue original interdisciplinary projects without the constraints of an external structure. Students interested in a self-directed project, research or internship in the humanities, or projects that include arts, travel, or interdisciplinary pursuits are invited to present a proposal to Ariel Goldberger. Students with a lively sense of self-direction, discipline, and intellectual curiosity are strongly encouraged to apply. Ariel Goldberger supports interdisciplinary studies and projects in the Arts, Humanities, Consciousness Studies, and travel. | humanities, arts, social sciences, and consciousness studies. | Ariel Goldberger | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Winter | ||||
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Individual Study: Interdisciplinary Projects, Arts, Consciousness Studies and Humanities
Ariel Goldberger aesthetics anthropology architecture art history classics communications community studies consciousness studies cultural studies field studies gender and women's studies geography international studies language studies leadership studies literature music outdoor leadership and education philosophy psychology queer studies religious studies sociology somatic studies theater visual arts writing Signature Required: Spring |
Contract | SO - SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | SSpring | Individual study offers students the opportunity to develop self-direction, to learn how to manage a personal project, to focus on unqiue combinations of subjects, and to pursue original interdisciplinary projects without the constraints of an external structure. Students interested in a self-directed project, research or internship in the humanities, or projects that include arts, travel, or interdisciplinary pursuits are invited to present a proposal to Ariel Goldberger. Students with a lively sense of self-direction, discipline, and intellectual curiosity are strongly encouraged to apply. Ariel Goldberger supports interdisciplinary studies and projects in the arts, humanities, consciousness studies, and travel. | humanities, arts, social sciences, and consciousness studies. | Ariel Goldberger | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | ||||
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Individual Study: Interdisciplinary Projects, Arts, Consciousness Studies and Humanities
Ariel Goldberger aesthetics anthropology architecture art history classics communications community studies consciousness studies cultural studies field studies gender and women's studies geography international studies language studies leadership studies literature music outdoor leadership and education philosophy psychology queer studies religious studies sociology somatic studies theater visual arts writing Signature Required: Fall |
Contract | SO - SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | Individual study offers students the opportunity to develop self-direction, to learn how to manage a personal project, to focus on unqiue combinations of subjects, and to pursue original interdisciplinary projects without the constraints of an external structure. Students interested in a self-directed project, research or internship in the humanities, or projects that include arts, travel, or interdisciplinary pursuits are invited to present a proposal to Ariel Goldberger.Students with a lively sense of self-direction, discipline, and intellectual curiosity are strongly encouraged to apply.Ariel Goldberger supports projects in the Arts, Humanities, Consciousness Studies, Arts, and interdisciplinary studies. | humanities, arts, social sciences, and consciousness studies. | Ariel Goldberger | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||||
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The Lens-Based Image: Theory, Criticism, Practice
Matt Hamon |
Program | FR ONLYFreshmen Only | 16 | 16 | Day | SSpring | The focus of this program will be on photographic theory, criticism and practice. Photographic images pervade every facet of our society and affect almost all of our thoughts and emotions. Though their intentions can be elusive, and dependant on context, they are always present and should be approached with a critical mind and eye.This program is designed for beginning photographers and will emphasize seeing, thinking and creating with thoughtful inquiry in hopes of providing a better understanding of the construction and manipulation of an image's meaning and form. All of the exercises, lectures, presentations, film screenings, gallery visits, critiques, etc. are designed to develop each student's technical, theoretical and conceptual approach to the subject matter and his/her understanding of the connections between these three elements. Students will carry out art historical research as well as visual research to support personal artistic inquiry. Students will be expected to rigorously pursue their personal studio work while participating in interdisciplinary critiques of their work and the work of others.Students should be prepared to do work in critical thinking, reading, writing, and most of all, art production. Seeing, thinking, visualizing and creating "exercises" will be assigned. Students should be prepared to actively engage in these exercises which might, at times, seem fundamental-for instance, making a photogram. Students should be prepared to complete a significant, but reasonable, number of assigned readings. Seminar readings will inform our understanding of aesthetics generated from lens-based images. Students should be prepared to complete a significant, but reasonable, amount of writing on the arts. Each week, students will be required to demonstrate active studio practice in relationship to their personal work. | art, photography, art theory, art criticism, studio practice, and writing for the arts. | Matt Hamon | Freshmen FR | Spring | ||||
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Making Dances: Creative Process in Motion
Robert Esposito aesthetics art history consciousness studies dance linguistics physiology somatic studies theater |
Program | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | This focused one-quarter program centers on progressive study in Laban-based modern dance composition/choreography. Activities include technique, theory/improvisation/seminar, and composition classes. Technique is based in basic anatomy and principles of dance kinesiology, not style, period or ethnicity. Students learn how to make dances from their own sensory, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral experience by developing skills in modern dance technique, theory/improvisation, composition, performance, and critical analysis. This multidimensional approach to creative dance develops a kinesthetic vocabulary drawing on linguistics, poetics, architecture, visual arts, art history, anatomy, and choreography. The course includes units on diet, injury prevention, and somatic therapy. Strength, range, poise, and depth are developed though Pilates-based floor barre and Hanna/Feldenkrais-based Somatics. Seminar will focus on building verbal and non-verbal skills aimed at critical analysis of the history of art, choreography, and their socio-cultural contexts. Writing will focus on the development of a journal using action language, visual art, and poetics. The program culminates with a Week Ten concert of student and faculty and/or guest choreography. | criticism, dance, expressive arts, movement therapy, and somatic studies. | Robert Esposito | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||||
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Mediated States of Modernity: Distraction, Diversion, and Ambivalence
Kathleen Eamon and Julia Zay aesthetics art history cultural studies media studies moving image philosophy writing |
Program | SO - SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | One of the ways that historians and theorists distinguish modernity, and mass and popular culture more specifically, is by describing the ways in which it ushered in a new age of sensation. Using Marx's notion of the "social hieroglyph" as a model for looking at everyday life, we will splice together visual culture studies, cinema studies and 19th and 20th century aesthetic philosophy in an investigation of some of the defining mental and emotional states of attention produced by and for emerging cultural forms, such as cinema, radio, amusement parks, the arcade, and the language of modernist art. We will construct our own partial and fragmented or, to borrow Benjamin's phrase, "little" history of modern senses and sensibilities. In particular, we'll focus in on in-between states of attention that are easily dismissed as unremarkable but that, precisely by going unremarked, play a central role in our mediated public lives. Public intellectuals of the 20th Century like Freud, Benjamin, Kracauer, Gorky and others examine these states closely in their descriptions of everyday life in terms that make evident both the dangers and potentials of these modes of attention. We'll model our approach on the studied "ambivalence" that characterizes the attitude of Frankfurt School figures like Benjamin and Kracauer towards popular or mass culture, thinkers who are not indifferent but who sustain a truly divided, thus complicated, understanding of how one inhabits a mass-mediated, capitalist, industrialized, post-traditional culture - neither submitting to its demands nor removing oneself entirely, one ought to engage it playfully. We'll explore how we ourselves are always both submitting and resisting the ideological forces of mass culture. Some examples of the states we have in mind are: amusement, distraction, diversion, boredom, play, and so on. These states are often "located" in terms of specifically modern places, such as the cinema, amusement parks, and urban centers, and we will ask what kinds of audiences or what kind of "public" gets constituted by these states and contexts. Although our focus will be largely turn-of-the-century to mid-century (the last one, that is), we will follow our line of thought into more recent times with thinkers like Susan Sontag and David Foster Wallace. We will also develop our own practice of paying close attention to everyday life and meta-attention to our modes of engagement with it in our weekly observation exercises and field study. This work will inform both our traditional and our experimental essay-writing as we attempt to yoke the observational with the lyrical and theoretical modes. In summation, we will read and write a lot, watch films, look at art, listen to both music and sound, mix lecture with seminar and workshops with fieldwork. | film studies, humanities, media, philosophy, visual culture studies, and writing. | Kathleen Eamon Julia Zay | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||||
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Nature/Image
Susan Aurand aesthetics art history natural history visual arts Signature Required: Winter |
Program | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | WWinter | This program is an intensive visual arts program for students having a good background in studio art, who are passionate about the natural world and eager to learn more about it. How have past artists, philosophers and scientists understood and depicted the physical world? How are contemporary artists re-interpreting and re-shaping our fundamental relationship to the environment and to other species? What is the role of the artist in a time of environmental crisis? Through readings, lectures seminars and focused studio work, we will examine these questions. Individually, we will take the approach of artist/naturalists, and delve deeply into an exploration of some aspect of nature that intrigues each of us. Through research and studio work we will express our understanding and personal vision of this piece of Nature. Fall quarter will focus on intensive skill building work in drawing, painting and mixed media, in preparation for our individual field studies. We will also study critical reading and research skills through lectures, readings, and practical assignments. In the first weeks of winter quarter, each of us will present a proposal for an in-depth, individual field study of a site, organism, natural process or system. During the three weeks (weeks 7,8,9) of winter, everyone will conduct his/her field study at a site either on-campus or off-campus in the U.S. Back on campus in week 10, we will all present our Nature/Image field projects to the program. How will each of us choose where we want to do our field study? You may have a special place that calls you, or a passion for a particular plant, animal or natural phenomenon that determines your choice. The work of another artist may inspire your project. Your field study could be done on Evergreen's Beach trail or in your home town. Your project might take you on hikes into a pristine wilderness area or to the Seattle Zoo. Both on-campus and off, this program will function as a learning community. On-campus, you will need to commit at least forty hours of work per week in class and in the studio with your peers, and you will be asked to regularly present work and to engage in critical assessment, in dialog and in writing. During the three-week field-study portion, you will be required to regularly communicate via internet with faculty and your peers through a program web-site and blog. | aesthetics, art, art history, education, natural history, natural science, and studio art. | Susan Aurand | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||
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Poetics and Performance
Ariel Goldberger and Leonard Schwartz |
Program | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | WWinter | This program will explore of the disciplines of poetics, experimental puppet theater, and performance. How do words, light, sound and bodies interact? Is there a way to use words which does not weaken the use of the other senses, but allows one to discover shadows of sound and rustlings of vision in language? Are there ways of using text in visually based performance that do not take for granted the primacy of text? Students will be required to complete reading, writing and artistic projects towards these ends. The poetry and theater writing of Antonin Artaud will be central to our work.Faculty members will support student work by offering workshop components in poetry, puppet theater and movement. Students will produce weekly projects that combine and explore the relationship of puppet theater and poetry in experimental modes. Readings might include the works of such authors as Artaud, Tadeusz Kantor, Richard Foreman, Susan Sontag, Kamau Brathwaite, Hannah Arendt and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Student work and progress will be presented weekly in all-program critique sessions. | poetics, performance, puppetry and creative writing. | Ariel Goldberger Leonard Schwartz | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||
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Post-Colonial Caribbean: Aesthetics of Culture and Identity
Tom Womeldorff and Marianne Bailey |
Program | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | Marianne Bailey will be offering . Tom Womeldorff will be offering . Interested students should refer to the program descriptions in the catalog for more information. | social sciences, arts and the humanities, international studies and economic development. | Tom Womeldorff Marianne Bailey | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||||
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Seeing the Light
Bob Haft aesthetics art history visual arts Signature Required: Fall |
Program | SO - SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | This photography program is designed for the serious student at the intermediate and advanced level wishing to do in-depth study of the technical and aesthetic aspects of the medium. Through the combination of darkroom exercises, seeing workshops, seminars and written responses to readings and films, tests, and critiques we will explore the use of small, medium and large format cameras along with aspects of historic and contemporary aesthetics. The course will culminate in a group project dealing with documentation of place and preservation of visual histories. Readings for the quarter will include but not be restricted to the following books: by Susan Sontag, by Terry Barrett, by Roland Barthes, and edited by Ian Jeffrey. The first part of the program will be devoted to developing skill in the use of large and medium format and 35mm cameras and in how to conduct interviews of people. We will also identify specific areas or groups in the vicinity which might serve as subjects on which to conduct a photographic study. Finally, we will learn about how to make and bind books. The second part of the program will be spent doing field research (making photos of and interviewing people in the communities we have chosen) and making something from it. At the end of the term, I would like to put our photographic studies into book form and present them to the people who have served as our subjects in recognition of their sharing of their stories and for allowing us to work with them. Each student will also be responsible for doing research and giving a 20-minute presentation on the work of a contemporary or historic photographer. | aesthetics, the arts, journalism, photography, history and arts education. | Bob Haft | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | ||||
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Student Originated Studies: Music
Terry Setter Signature Required: Spring |
SOS | FR - SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | SSpring | This SOS is an opportunity for well-prepared students to do highly independent work in Music Composition, Music Technology, or Audio Production. Participants will meet as a group on Thursday mornings to review progress and share ideas for increasing the quantity and quality of the work that students are doing. Specific descriptions of learning goals and activities will be developed individually between the student and faculty. | music, music technology, and audio production. | Terry Setter | Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | |||
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Student Originated Studies: Poetics
Leonard Schwartz aesthetics literature philosophy writing Signature Required: Spring |
SOS | SO - SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | SSpring | Students are invited to join this learning community of culture workers interested in language as a medium of artistic production. This SOS is designed for students who share similar skills and common interests to do advanced work that may have grown out of previous academic projects and/or programs. Students will work with faculty throughout the quarter; we will design small study groups, collaborative projects and critique groups that will allow students to support one another's work. Poetics involves language as creative functions (writing, poetry, fiction), language as performance, language as image, and language as a tool of thought (philosophy, criticism). Our work will be to calibrate these various acts. | poetics, poetry, metafiction, literary theory and criticism, writing, publishing and the arts. | Leonard Schwartz | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | ||||
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Teaching Through Performance: American Radical History
Arun Chandra aesthetics history music theater Signature Required: Fall |
Program | SO - SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | WWinter | There are many important events in American History that never make it into our history textbooks or are only mentioned in passing, thus remaining hidden from students in many high-school history classes. In this program, we will study these hidden histories, create performances of theater and music about them, and, if possible, perform them for local high-school history classes as an alternative method of teaching about historical events. Each quarter will be divided into three parts. First, we will research hidden histories, such as Margaret Sanger and the legalization of birth control; Jane Addams and the Women's Peace movement; William Z. Foster and the American Communist Party; the trials of Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and the Chicago Seven; the 1919 general strike in Seattle; FDR's "Economic Bill of Rights"; and American involvement in overthrowing the democratically elected Chilean government. Second, we will compose scripts and music for short performances about these histories. Finally, we will rehearse and perform these events. If possible, we will perform in high schools in the local area. Each quarter, students will be expected to write a short paper about their historical research, write the scripts and music and help present the performances. Alongside the historical work of American political and social history, we will be reading plays and viewing operas from the 19th and 20th centuries that address and depict social problems. Some of the writers and composers we will examine include Bertolt Brecht, Bernard Shaw, Frank Wedekind, Alban Berg, Giuseppi Verdi, Ludwig van Beethoven, and W. A. Mozart. Each quarter will have its own cycle of research, composition and performance. New students can join the program in winter quarter on a space-available basis. | 19th- and 20th-century American history, music composition, creative writing, teaching, and performance. | Arun Chandra | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | |||
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Temporal Images
Matt Hamon, Naima Lowe and Joseph Tougas aesthetics art history media studies moving image philosophy visual arts |
Program | FR ONLYFreshmen Only | 16 | 16 | Day | FFall | WWinter | This visual art program introduces students to academic enquiry into concepts of time and artistic practices with a myriad of references to temporal space. We will investigate the many ways time is defined, tracked and represented across cultures. From physics to natural philosophy, we will explore references to time from narrative structures to technical communication and abstract images. We will look at the work of realist scholars such as Sir Issac Newton and contrast these concepts to ideas posed by Immanuel Kant and others.Themes emerging in the program will inform the production of written and artistic work. Class time will involve a combination of lectures, workshops, practical assignments, and studio seminars. Students with a strong background in any digital media are encouraged to apply, provided that they have an interest in synthesizing past themes and media in their work with academic enquiry into concepts of time. This program emphasizes art making, conceptual thinking and experimentation. We will focus on core aspects of analog, digital and new media art by challenging ourselves to produce a series of innovative art projects.This program will introduce the core conceptual skills necessary to employ image in the generative and investigative context of art making and scholarly enquiry. Students will work individually and in small teams with digital cameras, digital video cameras, non-linear video editing systems and computer graphics packages to examine a broad range of issues involved in the creation of provocative works of art and images relating to time. Image processing, web content creation, basic animation, temporal structures, interface design, interaction strategy, narrative structures, video editing and sound editing will all be introduced. This program is designed for students who already have a strong work ethic and self-discipline, and who are willing to work long hours in the art studio, on campus, and in company with their fellow students.Students are invited to join this learning community of contemporary artists who are interested in new media based art, design, writing, history and theory, and who want to collaborate with media faculty. | media studies, moving image, visual arts and arts education. | Matt Hamon Naima Lowe Joseph Tougas | Freshmen FR | Fall | |||
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World Beyond: The Illusive and Grotesque in Japanese Literature and Film
Setsuko Tsutsumi |
Program | SO - SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | SSpring | Fantasy literature has been enjoying a renewed recognition since 1960s. As if it is the token of growing interest in the genre, we find ourselves surrounded by increasing numbers of science fiction, grotesque stories, surrealistic stories, and Anime. Why are they gaining such popularity? What are the phenomena telling us? This program will explore major Japanese fantasy literature in an attempt to delineate the nature and characteristics of fantasy literature and film. Japanese literature has a long tradition of crossing borders between the real and unreal. Examination of its themes and methods, along with its historical changes, will help us, in a microcosmic way, to explain the surge of the genre and the social needs which called for their emergence. We will first examine the tradition of the illusive quality in major classical works such as the great novel of the early eleventh century, , and apparition Noh plays of the fifteenth century. We will analyze their non-human qualities and the ways they transcend the limitations of time and space in order to explore the mysterious inner workings of the human mind. After studying ghost stories of the eighteen century, we will continue to explore the works in modern times: unique Gothic works of Izumi Kyoka; Soseki's , which critics once stated as "Beginning of Modern Japanese Fantasy"; and Yasunari Kawabata’s , which demonstrates his unique aesthetics. We will also address the theme of urban fantasies in contemporary literature. With the development of capitalism and technology, the urban cities became the space of mazes and an epidemic reflecting our anxiety and isolation. The demonic, grotesque, and nonsense nature of mega cities were well reflected in various genres of literature and films. We will analyze the form of the fantasy in those works and attempt to define their significance. Through our examination of the works in the program, we hope to clarify what we need to set us free from the confines of realism and project our mind through supernatural or uncanny phenomena. | Japanese literature, Japanese film, and Japanese studies. | Setsuko Tsutsumi | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring |