Courses

Creativity & Taoism

Course No. HCS300.1  Credits: 3
Faculty Allen Zimmerman

This interdisciplinary course explores the ground from which, in the Chinese Taoist philosophic view, all great creativity springs. The purpose is two-fold: first, to investigate and achieve an understanding of the Taoist world view through readings of primary texts such as the "Tao Te Ching" and the "Chuangtzu," and selected works from the Ch'an (Zen) tradition. Second, we proceed to examine the Taoist and Ch'an perceptions are applied to and affect the creation of the art object in traditional China, primarily represented by selections from Chinese poetry. Appropriate attention will also be paid to intended relationships between painting and poetry, occurring when poems are inscribed directly on paintings to create an aesthetic whole. Here the notion that "visual" and "literary" experiences are somehow mutually exclusive will be challenged. We read such poets as T'so Ch'ien, Wang Wei, Su Tung-p'o and Han Shan, and we look at paintings by such artists as Mu Ch'i, Mi Fei, Shih T'ao and Ni Tsan. Students are encouraged to connect and contrast Taoist assumptions and themes with their own knowledge and experiences as developing artists. May be applied as Creative Writing Concentration course. 3 credits.

Critical Issues Art & Des Hist: 18th C - 1945

Course No. ACD102  Credits: 3
Faculty Andrew Dolan | David Hart | Gary D Sampson | Lane Cooper | Michael Weil | Rita Goodman

Covers major movements and ideas in European and American art and design history to the mid-20th century. Students are provided with a firm grounding in the debates and theories of modernity and modernism in art. Prerequisite ACD 101. Offered spring. 3 credits.

Critical Issues Art & Des Hist: 1945-Present

Course No. ACD201  Credits: 3
Faculty Gary D Sampson | Rita Goodman

Examines influential artists and related concepts of art and design from around WWII through the first decade of the new millennium. Discussions focus especially on critical distinctions and meanings of modern, postmodern, and contemporary art, design, and visual culture. Prerequisites ACD 101 and 102. Offered fall. 3 credits.

Critical Models

Course No. ACD375.1  Credits: 3

For many people criticism is at once a supplement, an act of validation, a guiding light, a theoretical discourse, a substitute for forming their own opinions, a form of promotion, a ploy, and a sham.Ê In part this range of views are a consequent of the fact that criticism is often perceived of as little more than someone asserting their judgment or taste, rather than constituting a discipline. Yet, despite this popular view, critics actually employ numerous disciplines and ideological perspectives in their effort to establish the criteria, standards and values by which art's contents both implicit and explicit may be discussed. By reading and discussing examples of criticism written over the last half century this course will to explicateÊ why certain critical models came to dominate the discourses that circumscribed art practicesÊ while demonstrating thatÊ the history of criticism is not merely a sequence of detached views and opinions; it is a record of changing positions and their methodologies. Visual Culture Emphasis course. 3 credits.

Criticism as a Studio Practice

Course No. VAT341.1

This course will be of interest to all students maintaining a studio practice and focuses on the role of critical dialogue in forming and informing studio production. Through modern and contemporary models, students will be asked to consider the relationship between what is critically said about a work of art and how that frame effects the workÕs standing in the world. Examples to be considered will include: Apollinaire and Picasso; Pollock and Greenberg; Andy WarholÕs practice; Andre SerranoÕs Piss Christ; Robert MapplethorpeÕs work; Chris Ofili and the Young British Artists; and the television show ÒWork of Art.Ó Students will develop and participate in projects extending from these models as well as giving an intensive look at their own practices and how what they make is changed by the critical dialogue which surrounds making in an academic environment. This course is open to all students. 3 credits.

Criticism as a Studio Practice

Course No. VAT441.1

This course will be of interest to all students maintaining a studio practice and focuses on the role of critical dialogue in forming and informing studio production. Through modern and contemporary models, students will be asked to consider the relationship between what is critically said about a work of art and how that frame effects the workÕs standing in the world. Examples to be considered will include: Apollinaire and Picasso; Pollock and Greenberg; Andy WarholÕs practice; Andre SerranoÕs Piss Christ; Robert MapplethorpeÕs work; Chris Ofili and the Young British Artists; and the television show ÒWork of Art.Ó Students will develop and participate in projects extending from these models as well as giving an intensive look at their own practices and how what they make is changed by the critical dialogue which surrounds making in an academic environment. This course is open to all students. 3 credits.

Criticsm as Studio Practice

Course No. VAT241.1  Credits: 3

This course will be of interest to all students maintaining a studio practice and focuses on the role of critical dialogue in forming and informing studio production. Through modern and contemporary models, students will be asked to consider the relationship between what is critically said about a work of art and how that frame effects the workÕs standing in the world. Examples to be considered will include: Apollinaire and Picasso; Pollock and Greenberg; Andy WarholÕs practice; Andre SerranoÕs Piss Christ; Robert MapplethorpeÕs work; Chris Ofili and the Young British Artists; and the television show ÒWork of Art.Ó Students will develop and participate in projects extending from these models as well as giving an intensive look at their own practices and how what they make is changed by the critical dialogue which surrounds making in an academic environment. This course is open to all students. 3 credits.

Culture/Conflict/Syncretism in African & African-American Literature

Course No. LLC441.1  Credits: 3
Faculty Olatubosun Ogunsanwo

This course is primarily concerned with the dialectic of multiculturality and multidimensionality. Africans under colonialism, like most of the Third World at one time or the other, were confronted with the overwhelming encroachment of European/Western/Christian ways of life and thought alien to them. Yet Africa still struggles up till today to preserve its integrity, its intrinsic identity, notably in the form of neotraditionalism. This vortex of cultural interplay in Africa has led to socio-cultural phenomenon described as deracination or "the crisis in the soul" (Achebe) or "triple heritage/cultural accommodation" (Ali Mazrui). In postmodernist terms, it has led to syncretism. The course will also explore analogies from the multidimensional art, mainly from the interchange between visual and literary arts. Fulfills Humanities/Cultural Studies distribution requirement. Creative Writing Concentration course. 3 credits.