Imaging The Body fall/winter 05-06

A full-time, interdisciplinary program at The Evergreen State College, Olympia Washington

Prospective Students interested in enrolling in Imaging the Body
in the Winter 2006 quarter click here for information

FIRST WINTER CLASS MEETING:
Monday, January 9, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. Seminar II B 1105

The anatomy of the human body is a major theme that binds together all the aspects of the program. We all hold a variety of images of bodies, our own and others. We will explore these images from a number of different perspectives—intellectual, experiential, and artistic. Anatomy, life drawing, yoga, and exercises will be integrated to provide an extensive and holistic approach to understanding the human body, from personal, structural, and artistic perspectives. This program will admit 50% freshmen and 50% sophomores and above. Non-freshmen will be expected to work with freshmen students as mentors

The body is an incredibly complex, balanced, self-regulating organism. We will intensively explore the anatomy of the various body systems, especially the muscular and skeletal systems. Understanding the body as a series of complex and integrated tissues, structures, and systems will broaden the overall appreciation of the variety of body images that exist. Our explorations will be supported by an appropriate anatomy text, lectures, workshops, microscopic observations and a weekly experiential anatomy lab where students will work in pairs to identify various muscles and bones. This will be followed by a yoga session.

Artists traditionally learn to draw the human figure by (1) drawing from a live model and (2) through studying the skeletal and muscular systems in books. This way of seeing and understanding the body places the artist’s focus on the model and creates an image of the body as “other”—a being or system outside the artist’s personal experience. We will address this split by integrating our work in figure drawing with a detailed introduction to human anatomy, along with a weekly yoga session. The experiential exploration of human anatomy as experienced from within through the discipline of yoga will create another image of the body to deepen our understanding.

We will explore a number of images of the human body through seminar readings that will probe our assumptions and stimulate new thoughts about appearance, gender, disease, death, and beauty.

Questions that are central to our program include:

• How does our perception of the shape, color, and function of bodies impact our understanding of others and ourselves?

• What are the dominant images of the body that we currently hold?

• How can we develop an integrated understanding of ourselves and our bodies through science, art, and movement of the physical body?

• How will an experiential understanding of anatomy through yoga and drawing change our perception of the human form?

• Historically, western culture has viewed the body as separate and distinct from the intellect, emotions, and spirit. How has this distinction affected the way we view bodies?

• How do we view depictions of the body differently, e.g. fashion, sports, fine art, pornography, medicine, dance, etc.?

• How do we develop a process to evaluate information we encounter in this program?

• What can we learn from observing our own bodies?

9 - 10 a.m.
Lecture
Lab II 2207

10:30 - 3 pm
Microscope Labs:
Lab I 3046
or
Group Check-ins:
Paul: Lab II 3270
Lisa: TBA

5:15-6:45 Optional yoga class in COM 210

9 am- 12 Writing Workshops

Seminar   II
with Lisa in E2107

with Paul in E2109

9 am- 10:30 Lecture
Seminar II E4115 10:30-12 Seminars
Seminar II E4115 or

Seminar II C2105 (lounge)

9-11:00     or
11:30 -1:30

Life Drawing Drawing Studio/Art Annex

12:30 - 2:30    or  
3:00 - 5 p.m. Experiential Anatomy Lab/Yoga

CRC 116

Red blood cells

Stomach lining