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Reviewing the Arts
Fall, 2005 ENG 2816 / Thursday: 1:00 – 4:50 p.m. / (Room 313, Congress building)
Instructor: Kristin Scott, MFA, A.M.
Department of English, Columbia College Chicago |
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Unit I: |
Questioning Art & Re-viewing |
Sept 8th: What is “Reviewing” and Why is it Important? |
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Introductions and review of syllabus and course requirements. In-class reading, writing exercise, and discussion.
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Sign up for oral presentations.
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Discuss the differences/similarities between “criticism” and “reviewing.” What constitutes a review? (Elements and components of a review, as well as various kinds of reviews, reviewers, publications, agendas, and variables at work in reviewing, including ethnic, historical, national, genre, class, gender, and ideological factors.)
Weekly Response #1 Assigned (due next week): Read “Run, You Fat Bastard” (handout review) and identify the elements and components of the review, by circling and labeling them, and then write a two-page reflection piece on what variables may be at work within the review. |
Sept 15th: The Foundations and Future of Art Criticism |
Response Assignment #1 Due
Reading Due:
• Excerpts from Plato, The Republic: Book X (Sections I, IV, and VII) and Aristotle, “Section IV: Problems in Criticism. The Principles of Their Solution, The Poetics ” (handouts).
Weekly Response #2 Assigned (due next week): Find two reviews: one of which you believe is more scholarly or critical in its approach, and one that is more exemplary of what Charlesworth calls “art writing.” The reviews can address any genre of art (and even different genres). Discuss, in a 2-3 page journal entry, the different approaches each writer takes in reviewing her/his art.
Review Assignment #1 - 1500 Word Review (draft due in two weeks): Choose an “issue-oriented” performance to go see, preferably a live one, but it can also be on a DVD/Video if you cannot find a live performance (can be theater/dance/etc). In ~1500 words, review the performance. |
Sept 22nd:
Art's Responsibility to the Viewer and the (Re)viewer's Responsibility to Art |
Response Assignment #2 Due
Reading Due:
• “Introduction” and “Discussing the Undiscussable,” by Arlene Croce, from Crisis of Criticism, (Berger).
• “Victims and Critics,” New Criterion, Feb95, Vol. 13, Issue 6, p.1-3 (handout).
• Winterson, Jeanette. “Art Objects,” Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery. New York: Vintage, 1995.
In-class viewing of Bill T. Jones' performance Still/Here (56 min).
In-class writing exercise on Still/Here.
Weekly Response #3 Assigned (due next week): Reflecting on the assigned reading (Croce, Winterson, and New Criterion) and our class discussion, write your manifesto: a 2-3 page reflection piece that describes your philosophy of art, what you believe to be arts' responsibility to society, and the viewer's (and reviewer's) responsibility to art. |
Unit II: |
Fine and Performing Arts |
Sept 29th: Performance Art - Challenges of “Issue-Oriented” Art |
Draft of 1500 Word Review Due / Bring 3 copies!!!!! (you should only have your name on ONE COPY – the one you give to me; the other two copies should only have titles on them)
Response Assignment #3 Due
Reading Due:
• Emlinger Roberts, Rebecca. “The Stripper: Victim Art and the Art of Suffering,” Antioch Review, Winter2005, Vol. 63 Issue 1, p23-39 (handout).
• Carol Oates, Joyce. “Confronting Head-on the Face of the Afflicted” (Berger).
In-class Revision Workshop of Review
Oral Presentation/s
Peer Review Assignment: Download two Peer Review Forms and review peers papers, responding to the questions on the peer editing assignment sheet for each review. Please make a copy of EACH peer review for me. One copy will go to the student peer you are reviewing, one copy will go to me. DUE NEXT WEEK!!
Response Assignment #4 (due next week): Create a list of bullet points that summarize, in complete statements, the main argument that both Oates and Roberts make about “issue-oriented” art (see handout for more guidance). |
Oct 6th: Theater - Power of Myth and the Myth of the “Real” |
Weekly Response Assignment #4 Due
Peer Editing Assignment DUE!
Reading Due:
• Winterson, Jeanette. “Imagination and Reality,” Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery. New York: Vintage, 1995.
Oral Presentation/s |
Oct 13th: Visual Arts - Searching High and Low for Culture |
FINAL of 1500 Word Review Due
Reading Due:
• Lacayo, Richard, “How Does 80s Art Look Now? ” Time, 3/28/2005, Vol. 165, Issue 13
• Sontag, Susan. “One culture and the new sensibility,” Against Interpretation (handout).
• Mikulak, William A. “The Canonization of Warner Brothers Cartoons, or How Bugs Bunny Came to the Museum of Modern Art,” (handout).
Response Assignment #5: (Due next week) Find some cartoon or comic strip and be prepared to come to class next week and show your image and discuss how it expounds upon (whether in a subtle, subversive, or direct way) some issue, concern, political, or ethical issue or agenda.
Oral Presentation/s
EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY - Reviewing in Practice: Meet at 731 S Plymouth Court on Wednesday, October 19th at 6:30 p.m. for a Panel discussion with Chicago-area professional art reviewers: reviewers will discuss their careers in reviewing the arts and the issues and challenges they have faced as reviewers. If you write one to two paragraphs that describes what you learned during the panel discussion, I will give you extra credit (equal to a response assignment).
Click here for a more detailed description of the event. |
Oct 20th: Visual Rhetoric / Comic Strips and Cartoons |
Response Assignment #6 Due
Reading Due:
• Reaves, Wendy Wick. “The Art in Humor, the Humor in Art.” American Art, Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer, 2001.
• Thibodeau, Ruth. “From Racism to Tokenism: The Changing Face of Blacks in New Yorker Cartoons,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Winter89. (handout).
Class Trip to Exhibition at A+D Gallery, 619 S. Wabash: The Cartoonist's Eye / The Cartoonist's Eye features the work of artists using the comic's medium – most notably Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman and Robert Crumb.
The Cartoonist's Eye features the work of artists using the comics medium – most notably Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman and Robert Crumb. This exhibition is a small preview of curator Ivan Brunetti's upcoming Anthology of Graphic Fiction (Yale University Press) and features the original artwork created for some of the comic strips and graphic novels presented in the book. "These are comics that intelligently use the unique word-picture language that is particular to the form," says Brunetti. The exhibit will offer a vibrant sampling of the vital, highly personal work that is currently being produced and will give the viewer an insight into the process of cartooning. The exhibition runs through October 22nd.
Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 5pm.
Response Assignment #6 (due next week): Find an image or set of images (could even be an advertisement); make sure you bring a cut-out or copy of the image to class. Write a 2-3 focused essay on whether your image reflects either Mulvey or Neale's concepts and why or why not. Use MLA documentation format, citing specific passages from each writer to support your observations.
Review Assignment #2 (draft due Nov 3rd) – go see Dance Africa (this coming weekend) OR attend a ShawChicago performance of Major Barbara and write a 5-6 page review of the performance you choose, taking into consideration all that we've read and discussed thus far (see handout for more guidance). |
Unit III: |
Media Arts |
Oct 27th: Cinema -
The Sexual Subject/Spectacle |
Response Assignment #7 Due
Film in class: In My Country (about South Africa's attempt to heal from apartheid).
Reading Due:
• Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality (handout).
• Neale, Steve. “Masculinity As Spectacle,” The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality (handout). – Response to Mulvey's essay almost 20 years later.
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Nov 3rd: History Through the Lens of Cinema |
Draft of Review Assignment #2 Due (bring 3 copies!!!!!) / (you should only have your name on ONE COPY – the one you give to me; the other two copies should only have titles on them)
** Be prepared to discuss last week's film in relation to this week's reading, how the themes and issues discussed in the readings reflect or inform some of the issues brought up in last week's film. There is NO weekly response assignment due this week.
Reading Due:
• Kakoudaki, Despina. “Spectacles of History: Race Relations, Melodrama, and the Science Fiction/Disaster Film,” Camera Obscura, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2002.
• Doneson, Judith E. “Holocaust Revisited: A Catalyst for Memory or Trivialization?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 548, Nov. 1996 (handout).
Peer Editing Assignment: Respond to the questions on the peer editing assignment sheet for each review (for two peers). Please make a copy of EACH peer review for me. One copy will go to the student peer you are reviewing, one copy will go to me. DUE NEXT WEEK!!
Response Assignment #7 (due next week): Choose some video game (either one you rent, one you or a friend already have, or go to a video game outlet), play it for a while, and then discuss, in 2-3 pages, how it reflects issues of gender, class, ethnicity, or culture. |
Nov 10th: Media: Aesthetics and Representation |
Peer Editing Assignment DUE
Response Assignment #7 DUE
Reading Due:
• Walkerdine, Valerie. "Remember not to die: young girls and video games." Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature, Nov 2004.
• McBirne, Katherine. "Nested selves, networked communities: a case study of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction as an agent of cultural change." Journal of American Culture (Malden, MA), Dec 2004.
Oral Presentation/s |
Nov 17th: Interactive Multimedia – Virtual Realities? |
Sam Weller, author of The Bradbury Chronicles, will be visiting our class to discuss reviewing (has reviewed everything from film, theater, literature, to food).
Reading Due:
• Read intro and excerpt from Jeanette Winterson's The Powerbook. Also, listen to the audio clip, and watch the movie presentation.
be prepared to discuss it . . . thinking about the way Winterson utilizes an ambiguously gendered e-writer / e-philosopher named "Ali" to offer someone (an unknown someone, but a female, we know) an opportunity for "freedom" . . . "just for one night." The "risk," Winterson suggests, through her character, is to enter the story as yourself and to leave as someone else . . . the territory being explored is "you" . . . and Winterson does it through a fragmented series of stories within stories within The Powerbook. Identity becomes porous, and gender, sex, and sense of self are all as permeable to change as the narrative itself. Who is the narrator talking to? the person on the other side of the screen? or the reader? And why does Winterson set up her text this way, do you think? And does this reflect the cyberspace/virtual reality experience? What is or what can a narrative cyberspace or virtual reality experience be like? Be thinking of all these things as you read both the fictional excerpt, the "about" page of her novel, and the readings below . . . and come to class next week prepared to speak to all of it . . .
• Wolton, Dominique. "Virtual Illusion," Queen's Quarterly, Fall 2002.
• Gray, John. "Faith in political action is dead; it is technology that expresses the dream of a transformed world," New Statesman (1996), June 23, 2003
Oral Presentation/s
Review Assignment #2 Due next week by Tuesday, Nov. 22nd by NOON either by email (preferably) or in my box (in the English Dept) |
Nov 24th: |
THANKSGIVING BREAK!!! |
Unit IV: |
Writing and Textuality |
Dec 1st: Identity, Culture & Power |
Reading Due:
• Winterson, Jeanette. “The Semiotics of Sex,” Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery.
• Vasquez, Jessica M.“Ethnic identity and Chicano literature: How ethnicity affects reading and reading affects ethnic consciousness,” Ethnic & Racial Studies, Sep2005, Vol. 28 Issue 5 (handout).
Oral Presentation/s
Trip to Portfolio Center / particularly important for graduating seniors
Review Assignment #3 (draft due next week): Write a 5-6 page review of a poem, group of poems, short story, or nonfiction essay published in the last five years. You may draw from a Columbia College publication such as Columbia Poetry Review, New American Writing, South Loop Review, Hair Trigger, or Echo Magazine. Or you could go to your local bookstore or newsstand and find a piece within a literary journal. The library also carries a number of journals, such as: The Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Calyx, and Triquarterly. Magazines such as Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, or The New Yorker also contain contemporary poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. |
Dec 8th:
Non-Traditional Narratives in Unconventional Places |
Draft of Review Assignment #3 Due
Reading Due:
• Bartholome, Lynn and Philip Snyder. “Is it Philosophy or Pornography? Graffiti at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que,” The Journal of American Culture, Vol. 27, Issue 1, March 2004 (handout).
• Sharpe, Christina Elizabeth. “Racialized Fantasies on the Internet,” Signs, Vol. 24, No. 4, Institutions, Regulation, and Social Control, Summer 1999.
Oral Presentation/s
In-class Revision Workshop of Review |
Dec 15th: Summary of Semester |
Review Assignment #3 Due | |
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